a. [a. F. collégial, or ad. L. collēgiāl-is, f. collēgium COLLEGE.]
1. Of the nature of, or constituted as, a college. † Collegial church: = collegiate church.
1530. Palsgr., 207/1. Collegial churche, esglise collegialle.
1530–1. Act 22 Hen. VIII., c. 15. Cathedralle and collegiall churches.
1641. Heylin, Help to Hist. (1671), 241. The Castle and the Collegial Church being both in rubbish.
1670. G. H., Hist. Cardinals, I. III. 68. There are sometimes two or three together of principal dignity in some Collegial Churches.
2. Of or belonging to a college (sense 4).
1603. Florio, Montaigne, I. xxv. (1632), 81. These collegiall Latinizers.
1605. Answ. to Supposed Discov. Rom. Doctr., 46. Observing the collegial rules and constitutions.
1794. G. Wakefield, Spirit of Chr., 11. The Master and fellows … of collegial societies.
1831. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss. (1853), 404. The usurpation of its [the University’s] functions and privileges by the collegial bodies.
1880. Daily News, 10 April, 2/8. The collegial triennial prize was awarded.
3. Of or belonging to a ‘collegium’ or college (sense 1), or to a body of persons associated as colleagues in the performance of any function.
Collegial system (of church government in Germany): see COLLEGIALISM.
1619. Balcanqual, Lett. 9 March fr. Dordrecht, in Hales, Gold. Rem. (1673), 121. One of the Scribes … was beginning to read our College his judgement, but Dr. Davenant … thought … that the Collegial suffrages should not be read thus privately.
1762. trans. Busching’s Syst. Geog., IV. 65. At Diets of the Empire … collegial meetings or others.
1816. F. H. Naylor, Hist. Germ., II. xvi. 33. The inconvenience of consulting his colleagues … the tardiness incidental to collegial deliberations.
1878. Seeley, Stein, II. 515. The clumsy collegial method must be excluded, and the bureaucratic method adopted.
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 1821/1. He [Pfaff] defended the collegial system against the reigning territorialism.
