Collegiate churches in Scotland

A collegiate church is a church served and administered by a college of canons or prebendaries, similar to a cathedral, although collegiate churches are not the seats of bishops. There were 42 such establishments in Scotland during the period 1250-1567, the earliest being the Church of "Saint Mary on the Rock" at Saint Andrews. Usually founded by powerful families, one purpose of the collegiate church was to pray for the souls of those members of the founding family that found themselves in purgatory. The Protestant reformers of the 16th c. did not accept the existence of purgatory, therefore these institutions became redundant, and all ceased to function by 1567 when the Catholic mass was abolished by act of Parliament.