Two quite different kinds of canon appear across church history, and the modern cathedral canon descends from only one of them. Canons regular are members of a religious order who live under a rule, most notably the Augustinian canons, combining communal religious life with active priestly ministry in a way that sits between monastic enclosure and ordinary diocesan clergy; they are still found today in orders such as the Premonstratensians. Secular canons, by contrast, are simply diocesan priests who hold a canonry, a place in a cathedral's or collegiate church's chapter, without belonging to any religious order or living under communal vows, and it is this secular sense the word carries in modern Anglican and Catholic usage when describing a cathedral's residentiary or honorary canons.
A cathedral chapter historically held real corporate authority over the cathedral's property, worship, and, during a vacancy, the diocese's temporary governance, electing the chapter's dean and, in some historical arrangements, even having a formal voice in choosing the new bishop. Most of that corporate governing power has since passed to diocesan bodies, leaving the chapter's remaining role centered on the cathedral's own worship, fabric, and administration.