(4) the sense collected from Scripture: (5) the desires collected from the congregation.
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Canon Bright[1] decides in favour of (1) as the explanation of Collecta, and (5) as that of Collectio, preferring the former as the source of our English word Collect.
Canon Bright quotes Alcuin the Northumbrian boy, the York Scholar (735-804), who became the most learned man in Europe, and the friend, adviser, and teacher, of the great Emperor Charlemagne. Alcuin derived the word from Collecta, an assembly for worship.
The Morning and Evening Collects.
The First Collect is the Collect of the Day. The Preface (last rubric before the Table of Lessons) orders that the Collect "appointed for the Sunday shall serve all the week after, where it is not in this Book otherwise ordered." The Book 'orders otherwise' for Saints' Days, and at such special times as Christmas, Ash-Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Even, but has omitted, by some accident, to provide for the two days after Ascension Day, for the week days between The Epiphany and the First Sunday after, and for the three days after Ash-Wednesday.
A rubric at the beginning of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels provides that the Collect for a Sunday, or for a Holy Day having a Vigil or Eve, shall be said at the Evening Service next before.
We have said something of the source of these Collects: their detailed consideration belongs to a {141} book on the Communion Service, or on the Epistles and Gospels.
The Second Collect, both at Mattins and Evensong, is a Collect for Peace. Both are taken from the same chapter of Prayers for Peace in the Gelasian Sacramentary.
The Morning Collect, desiring that our trust in God, and our fearlessness, may be strengthened by continual knowledge of God's protection, addresses Him as the author and lover of peace, and also as the One whom we know and serve, and thereby have life and freedom.