College (corporation)
A college is a variety of the corporation, literally a "body" (Latin: corpus, corporis) created by a legal fiction with its own legal personality, able to act largely as a natural person as regards the law of contract. Thus it can enter into contracts for sale, purchase and employment and can sue and be sued in a court of law, and can own real estate. Etymology The word "college" is contracted from the Latin compound word cum-lego, from the verb lego, legere, legi, lectum, "to collect, gather together, pick", plus the preposition cum, "with", thus meaning "selected together". Thus "colleagues" are fellow members of a college, literally "persons who have been selected together". In ancient Rome a collegium was a "body, guild, corporation united in colleagueship; of magistrates, praetors, tribunes, priests, augurs; a political club or trade guild". Examples Mediaeval Colleges of priests. In mediaeval England there were colleges of priests, for example in chantry chapels, which were financed by a trust fund, usually established by the will of the deceased, for the purpose of singing masses to speed the soul of the deceased through purgatory; Modern survivals The following are all groups of persons "selected in common" to perform