Großkanoniker

Großkanoniker is a title used in German-speaking cathedrals and collegiate churches to designate a senior member of the cathedral chapter. The office existed from the Middle Ages into the modern era in various dioceses of the Holy Roman Empire and its successor states, though its exact meaning varied by place and time. The Großkanoniker typically ranked among the higher canons, often just below the dean or provost, and could act as his deputy or representative.

Duties and functions varied, but commonly included governance of the chapter’s affairs, oversight of finances and real property, administration of endowments and chapters’ estates, and the organization of liturgical life and canonical elections. In many chapters the Großkanoniker presided over meetings in the absence of the dean and served as a spokesperson for the canonry in relations with the bishop. The role was thus both spiritual and administrative, reflecting the dual character of medieval and early modern cathedral chapters as bodies of clergy who also managed substantial temporal resources.

Appointment and tenure similarly varied by see: canons were typically elected by the chapter or appointed by the bishop, and the office could be held for life or until retirement in some systems. With reforms and secularization in the 18th to 20th centuries, the position often lost its autonomous authority or faded from use, though some chapters retained the title as an honorific or reframed it within other canonical offices. Today the Großkanoniker is primarily a historical term encountered in descriptions of cathedral governance.