He energetically summoned councils of his clergy and imposed reforms on his diocese, including a strict code of rules for the clergy of his cathedral church. He set out a system which made their community life much more disciplined, like that of a monastery, but still left them free to exercise pastoral care in cathedral and diocese – a model much imitated later. Since the Greek word for a rule or measure is kanōn, the word ‘canon’ became increasingly commonly applied to members of such regulated bodies of clergy in cathedrals or other major churches.
