A scholaster, from the Latin scholasticus (schoolmaster), or magister scholarum, was the head of an ecclesiastical school, typically a cathedral school, monastic school, or the school of a collegiate church, in medieval and early-modern Europe.Peter Nissen and William den Boer, "The Middle Ages after 1200", in Handbook of Dutch Church History, edited by Herman Selderhuis (Göttingen, 2014), pp. 141–142. Depending on the size of the school and the status of the institution to which it was attached, the scholaster might be the only teacher, the head of a considerable educational establishment, or have oversight over all the schools in their city or territory.Barbara Helen Haggh, Music, Liturgy, and Ceremony in Brussels, 1350–1500, vol. 1 (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988), pp. 149–153. The scholaster might be a dignitary in a cathedral or collegiate chapter, alongside the provost, dean, cantor, succentor, precentor, archdeacon, treasurer, cellarer, sacristan or almoner.Anne Walters Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims: Context and Meaning in His Musical Works (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 35, 140. It was not unknown for a scholaster to take the revenues of the post and deputise somebody else to carry out any teaching work involved.
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