page_title: Manchester Cathedral
section_title: Collegiate church
hierarchical_section_title: Manchester Cathedral / History / Collegiate church
caption_attribution_description: English: Inside the choir of Manchester Cathedral, Manchester, Greater Manchester, England, UK, looking east to the high altar
context_page_description: Manchester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, in Manchester, England, is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Manchester, seat of the Bishop of Manchester and the city's parish church. It is on Victoria Street in Manchester city centre.
  The former parish church was rebuilt in the Perpendicular Gothic style in the years following the foundation of the collegiate body in 1421. Then at the end of the 15th century, James Stanley II was responsible for rebuilding the nave and collegiate choir with high clerestory windows; also commissioning the late-medieval wooden internal furnishings, including the pulpitum, choir stalls and the nave roof supported by angels with gilded instruments. The medieval church was extensively refaced, restored and extended in the Victorian period, and again following bomb damage in the 20th century. The collegiate church became the cathedral of the new Diocese of Manchester in 1847, and is one of fifteen Grade I listed buildings in Manchester.
context_section_description: Thomas de la Warre became Baron de la Warre in 1398. A priest for more than 50 years, he was granted a licence from King Henry V and Pope Martin V to establish a collegiate church in Manchester in 1421. The college was established by royal charter, with a warden, eight fellows, four singing clerks and eight choristers. The parish church was dedicated to St Mary and to that dedication were added St George, the patron saint of England, and St Denys, the patron saint of France, perhaps reflecting de la Warre's French heritage, or Henry V's claim to the French throne. The college of priests was housed in new buildings on the site of the former manor house that survive as Chetham's Library paid for by de la Warre. He appointed John Huntingdon as the college's first warden who, between 1422 and 1458, rebuilt the eastern arm of the parish church to provide the collegiate choir. Huntington's monumental brass (much restored) is laid on the chancel floor. Huntington is also commemorated in Victorian rebus, carvings of a man hunting and a man with a tun (barrel of ale), on either side of the arch accessing the Lady Chapel. The church's 14th-century west tower and Lady Chapel were incorporated into the current structure although little or no fabric of that date is still visible, and the Lady Chapel was lost in 1940.
  Traditionally the third warden, Ralph Langley (1465–1481), is credited with rebuilding the nave but the nave and choir were substantially reconstructed again by James Stanley II (1485-1506) a few years later, when he raised the clerestory and provided the richly decorated timber roofs and choir stalls.  James's stepmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort was mother of Henry VII and through their alliance with the Tudor dynasty the Stanleys acquired both fabulous wealth and access to architects and craftsmen working on royal commissions. On stylistic grounds, the chancel arcades and clerestory of the cathedral are attributed to John Wastell, the architect for the completion of Kings College Chapel.  The choir stalls, carved at the workshop of William Brownflet of Ripon, are the finest of a series which includes the surviving stalls at Ripon Cathedral, Beverley Minster and Bridlington Priory. The carving of the misericord seats is exceptionally fine. James Stanley was responsible for the embellishment of the nave roof with supports in the form of fourteen life-size angel minstrels; and for the endowment of his own chantry chapel (now destroyed) near the north-east corner, in which he was buried in 1515.
  The college was dissolved in 1547 in the reign of Edward VI by the Chantries Act, but refounded by his sister Mary in 1553. Its future was uncertain when Elizabeth I succeeded in 1559, but was assured when she granted a new charter in 1578, allowing a warden, four fellows, two chaplains, four singing men and four choristers. The dedication of the college (but not the church) was changed to the college of Christ. Manchester and Southwell Minster were the only two medieval collegiate foundations where daily choral worship was maintained after the Reformation until they were joined by Ripon when its collegiate foundation was restored in 1607. John Dee, magus and astrologer for Elizabeth I was warden from 1595 to 1608 and occupied the wardens' lodgings now incorporated into Chetham's Library. The present charter, the fourth, was granted by Charles I preserving the dedication of the college to Christ.
caption: collegiate chancel, designed by John Wastell
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