CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE CHANTRY.

The characteristic feature of the Church work of the seventh century was the conversion of the Teutonic heathen people who had conquered the eastern half of England, and the foundation of a bishopric in every one of the heptarchic kingdoms; of the eighth century, the multiplication of monastic centres of evangelization; of that and the succeeding centuries the spread of the parochial system of a priest for each manor; of the twelfth century, the foundation of monasteries; of the thirteenth century, the foundation of vicarages in the appropriated parishes, and the institution of the new Order of friars; of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the foundation of chantries: during these two centuries about two thousand chantries were founded.

A chantry is a foundation for the maintenance of one or more priests, to offer up prayers for the soul of the founder, his family and ancestors, and usually of all Christian souls; and this was the motive of the founders of the majority of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

In the Religious Foundations of earlier times the condition of prayers for the donors was incidental. A man did not build a church for his _ville_ or found a monastery on his estate, with the sole or principal view of securing perpetual prayers for himself; but in accordance with the religious views of those times when a man did found any pious work, from a great monastery intended to be a nursery of saints to an almshouse for twelve poor people, he asked--he stipulated in the terms of his foundation deed--for the prayers of the members of his foundation. It would have looked like a want of proper religious feeling had he neglected to seek the benefit of their intercessory prayers. The desire for the prayers of the Church by those who could not found monasteries or build churches, found its satisfaction in benefactions to religious foundations, which secured for the donors the privileges of confraternity, and among these, the prayers of the community.[496] Every religious house had its catalogue of benefactors, or its list of confraters; and the grateful convent offered prayers for their good estate while living and the repose of their souls after death.[497] At Durham there lay on the altar a book very richly covered with gold and silver containing the names of all the benefactors of the cathedral church collected out of ancient MSS. about the time of the Suppression.[498] But far more interesting is the “Catalogus Benefactorum” of the great monastery of St. Alban, preserved in the British Museum Library; in it the name of every benefactor is entered, with a note of his gift--of an estate, or house, or sum of money, or sacred vessel; and in many cases a picture of the donor and of his gift is given, the house being shown in the background of the picture, the flagon or purse of gold held in his hand.

Error came in when a man founded a Divine service the sole object of which was to obtain prayers for himself; it was mitigated by the association of family, benefactors, and friends, and the usual addition of all faithful souls. After all, a saint of old was glad that his name should be enrolled in the diptych of his Church, and remembered in her prayers. But a saint would have been content to be included in the general sentence with which the roll concluded--“and all those whose names, O God, Thou knowest.” We, at least, may be satisfied with the commemoration by our Church of “all those who have departed in Thy faith and fear,” without being too ready to find fault with those whose eschatology differed somewhat from ours, and was less scriptural; but whose simple desire, after all, was for God’s mercy on themselves, and who, in anxiety for themselves, did not forget “all faithful souls.”

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In some cases it is probable that the common human desire to be remembered after death took this shape; a chantry was a monument; and a monument of living men keeping a name in remembrance has very respectable countenance. This is the explanation of a good number of English titles of nobility, with grants of suitable estates to maintain the title. The Dukedoms of Marlborough and of Wellington, the Earldoms of St. Vincent and of Nelson, were intended by the sovereign who granted the titles, and the Parliaments which granted the estates, to keep in memory those great men and their services to the country, and have well served their purpose. So, many a chantry kept the name of the founder fresh in the recollection of his descendants, and of the people of his neighbourhood, which would otherwise have been forgotten. The desire to have one’s name kept alive on the lips of prayer was not an unworthy one.

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But the two thousand chantries founded between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries were not all of this exclusively personal kind. Many included objects of general utility, which under the name of a chantry could be founded and endowed in a legal way, evading many legal difficulties. Some of the chantries were really chapels-of-ease for an outlying population; some were additions to the working clerical staff of a town; some were grammar schools, the chantry priest being really the schoolmaster.

Chantries began to be founded late in the thirteenth century. The “Taxatio” records only two: one of Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln, who died 1225, the other at Hatherton, in the Archdeaconry of Coventry.[499] The number of them increased more and more, and the greater proportion were founded in the fifteenth century.[500] They were distributed very unequally over the country. Some of the cathedrals served by canons had a considerable number, perhaps because founders of chantries who were great noblemen and ecclesiastics preferred to be commemorated in the mother church of their diocese. Thus, St. Paul’s, London,[501] had 37; York, 3; Lichfield, 87; Lincoln, 36; Chichester, 12; Exeter, 11; Hereford, 11; Sarum, 11; none in Wells; none in Bath Abbey Church, but 18 in the adjoining college of Delamond Roy. The cathedrals served by monks seem not to have encouraged the founding of chantries; thus there are none in Durham, Ely, Norwich, Worcester, Winchester, and only, exceptionally, 4 in Canterbury, 2 in Rochester; 4 in the Church of Austin Canons, which was the Cathedral of Carlisle. They were numerous in the great town churches, founded by the wealthy citizens; there were over 180 in the city and suburbs of London; 42 in the city of York; 23 in Newcastle; 4 in the city of Lincoln; 10 in the city of Hereford; 13 in the town of Newark; 7 in Doncaster; 5 in Rotherham, etc. They were unequally distributed over the country parishes; in Norwich diocese, there are very few outside the towns; in Yorkshire they are very numerous; in Wales there are almost none.

We give at length the history of a chantry at Ipswich, as an illustration of these personal chantries.

Edmund Daundy, merchant of Ipswich, in 1514, founded a perpetual chantry for a chantry priest at the altar of St. Thomas the Martyr, in the parish church of St. Lawrence, in Ipswich, for the prosperous state of King Henry VIII. and Katharine his queen, of himself, Edmund Daundy, Thomas Wulcy (Cardinal Wolsey), clarke, dean of the cathedral church of Lincoln, and of Wm. Daundy, his son, for the term of their life, and for their souls after their decease; and also for the souls of Anne, his late wife, Robert Wulcy and Jane, his wife, father and mother of the same Thomas Wulcy, etc.

The presentation is to be in the hands of the wardens of the parish and six men nominated by the bailiffs, who shall elect and nominate a man to the Prior of Holy Trinity, who shall present him to the Ordinary for admittance; and if the parish priest refuse to induct him, he may induct himself. He is to take oath to keep the statutes of the foundation, perform the duties personally, not be absent for more than twenty days, except from infirmity, not take any other benefice, office, stipend, trental, nor yearly service, but the £11 6_s._ 8_d._[502] granted by the founder; he shall abstain from all unlawful games and sports.

His duties are, to say twice in the week _dirge_ and _commendations_, and once in the week mass of _requiem_, with the collect, _Almighty and Everlasting God, who governest both the quick and dead, etc._, with its ... and post communion thereto pertaining; and each day the same priest, singing his mass, and going to the altar’s end before he washes his hands at the lavatory, shall say this psalm, _De profundis_, with the collect _Fidelium_, etc., at the end whereof he shall say, “May the soul of Edmund Daundy, founder of this chantry, and the souls of his parents and kinsfolk and benefactors, and all Christian souls, rest in peace and quietness. Amen.”

Also the priest is to be present in the choir of the parish church of St. Lawrence, having on his surplice, at mattins, processions, mass, and evensong, singing the psalmodies with the other priests and clarks every Sunday and Doublefeast and other convenient times, in augmenting of the Divine service, except any lawful case do let him.

Further on, he orders that the names of the persons to be prayed for, viz. the king and queen, Edmund Daundy, Thomas Wulcy, and Wm. Daundy, among the quick during their lives, and also the names of Anne, Robert, and Jane among the dead, shall be written on a table, and the said table by the said priest shall be set openly upon the altar of St. Thomas the Martyr, etc., to the intent that every day the said priest, in his mass, shall pray for the prosperity of our said sovereign lord the king, and the said Edmund the founder, etc., etc.

He assigns for the residence of the priest his messuage lately built, with a garden and a certain lane, and all its appurtenances, lately built in the parish of St. Lawrence.

He has provided for the chantry a mass-book, two complete vestments, and a book called a Coucher; and he directs that the vestments, books, chalices, and other ornaments of the altar given, or to be given, by him or any other patron, after mass shall be properly put away in a chest and locked up.[503] He also wills that the priest shall deposit yearly 2_s._ 4_d._ in a box, with two keys, one to be kept by himself and the other by the churchwardens, for the maintenance of the house, chantry, furniture, etc. Also, that every priest shall leave to his successor 40_s._, for the costs and charges of his successor about his presentation, admission, institution, and induction.

He makes elaborate arrangements for his year-day, with the whole service ordained for the dead, for ever. The chantry priest is on that day to distribute to the parish priest of St. Lawrence ministering about the same anniversary, 12_s._; to the twelve priests, masses and other divine services there doing, 6_s._; to the parish clerk, 12_d._; to the other six clerks there singing and serving God, 12_d._, equally among them; to twelve children there singing and serving God, 12_d._; to the sexton and ringing of the bells, 6_d._; to twelve poor indigent persons of the said parish to pray for his soul and the souls above said, 2_s._; and to the two bailiffs of Ipswich, 13_s._ 4_d._--that is to say, to every one of them to offer at the said anniversary, 12_d._, and to control the said anniversary, 6_s._ 8_d._

“And because it is not in man but in God to foresee and provide all things, and oftentime it fortuneth that what in the beginning was thought to be profitable, afterwards is found not to be so,” therefore he reserves to himself only the power to alter these statutes.[504]

The Pudsay Chantry at Bolton-by-Bowland, Yorkshire, was founded for a priest to pray for the soul of the founder, etc., and all Christian souls, and also to say mass at the manor house of Bolton when he shall be required by the said founder or his heirs.[505]

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Frequently a chantry was endowed for more than one priest; that of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral was for two priests, whose stipends at the end of the fifteenth century amounted to £12 each. The endowment of the early Chantry of Hugh of Wells, at Lincoln, was held by the sacrist who, out of its £21 6_s._ 8_d._ a year, had to find two chaplains and to pay alms to the poor at the obit. The Burghersh Chantry, at Lincoln Cathedral, was for five chaplains and six boys who lived together in the chantry house in the Cathedral Close; the endowment, after paying for the maintenance and schooling of the boys, left £7 9_s._ a piece to each of the cantarists. There was a chantry of six priests at Harwood, Yorkshire. There were many others with two and three priests. Richard III. commenced the foundation of a chantry of a hundred chaplains in York Minster; six altars were erected, and the chantry house begun, when the king’s death on Bosworth Field put an end to the magnificent design.[506] The foundation of his fortunate rival, though not so extravagant, was of regal splendour. Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster is the sumptuous chantry chapel in which his monument, with its bronze effigy, protected by the bronze herse, still remain uninjured. The title deed of the endowment which he made for the perpetuation of his memory still remains in the form of a handsome volume, whose pages are adorned with miniature pictures, and the great seals are still attached to it, in their silver cases. First, he provided for three additional monks to say masses for him, who were to be called the king’s chantry monks. On every anniversary, the greatest bell of the monastery was to be rung for an hour, and the bells rung as at the most solemn anniversaries. A hundred wax tapers, each 12 lbs. in weight and 9 feet long, were to be set upon and about the herse, and there continually to burn during all the time of the service of the _Placebo_, the _Dirge_, with lessons, lauds, and mass of _Requiem_, and all the orations, observances, and ceremonies belonging thereto. Also 24 new torches were to be held about the herse all the time of the service. Twenty pounds were to be given in alms, viz. 25 marks among the blind, lame, impotent, and most needy people, 2_d._ to each man and woman, and 1_d._ to each child so far as it will go; and 5 marks to be given to the 13 bedesmen and 3 bedeswomen provided in the said monastery (of whom one was to be a priest, and all under the government of a monk), 12_d._ to each. A weekly obit was to be held, at which the bells were to be rung; and alms given to the 13 bedesmen and 2 bedeswomen and 124 others, 1_d._ to each. Thirty tapers were to burn at the weekly obit, to be renewed when they had burnt down to 5 feet long; to burn also during high mass and first and latter evensong, and at every principal feast; and at the coming of the king and queen for the time being into the Church of the said monastery, and of any of royal blood, dukes, and earls. Four of the torches to be held about the herse at weekly obits, to be renewed when wasted to 7 feet long. Four tapers, one at each side and one at each end, were to burn perpetually night and day, besides the 100 aforesaid, to be renewed when wasted to 6 feet.

Every year, on some day before the anniversary, the abstract of the grant was to be read in the chapter house, and the Chief Justice or King’s Attorney or Recorder of London to be present, and to receive 20_s._ for the attendance, and after the reading to go straight to the herse and say certain psalms. The woodcut, taken from one of the illuminations of this title deed, represents the abbot and several monks and the bedesmen above mentioned.

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Parochial benefices were sometimes appropriated to the maintenance of chantries; in some cases what was done amounted to this: that the parish church was converted into a chantry for the lord of the manor and his family. Thus, in 1319, Sir John de Trejagu, Knt., founded a chantry for four chaplains in the Church of St. Michael Penkvil for prayers for himself and family. The proposal was approved by the bishop, who made the church collegiate, and the chief of the four clergymen who were to serve it an archpriest, with the care of the parishioners.

So, in 1334, Eresby Church was appropriated to the Chantry Chapel of Spillesby by the bishop, on the petition of Sir Rob. de Willughby, Knt., and a master and twelve chaplains of the chantry were founded there by Sir John de W. and Lady Johan his wife.[507] In 1395, Elizabeth de Willughby, Consort of Sir Robert, lord of Eresby, left her body to be buried in the above chantry, and bequeathed to the chantry a crucifix of gold in which is a piece of the cross of our Lord, and set with two rubies and two emeralds, with a circle of pearls on the head, to remain there for ever without being alienated.[508]

Isabel, widow of Sir Fulke de Penbridge (1410), purchased the advowson of Tonge Church, Shropshire, from Shrewsbury Abbey, rebuilt the church in its present beauty, and endowed it with £50, to support a warden, five chaplains, and thirteen old men. The chaplains were not to take other preferment. If any of the poor men were sick or bedridden, they were to be visited three times a week by one of the chaplains. If any stranger dined in hall, the chaplain who introduced him was to pay for his dinner, 3_s._ if at the high table, 1_s._ 4_d._ if at the low.[509]

Sometimes a man founded more than one chantry, perhaps, in churches on his several estates; thus, Ralph Basset, of Drayton, Knight, in 1389 leaves £200 to found two chantries, “one in St. Mary’s Chapel in Olney Churchyard, and one in the new chapel built by me at Colston Basset.”[510] Sir William de Molynes, Knight, in 4 Richard II., leaves bequests “to every chaplain of my three chantries.”[511]

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The founder of a chantry usually kept the right to nominate the cantarist in his own family. Thus, the founder of a chantry of three priests, who were to dwell together in a house vulgarly called Muston, in the parish of Leverton and Leake, left the right of presentation to her daughters.[512] Sometimes the presentation was left to the parish priest, as at Edmonton;[513] sometimes it was even vested in the parishioners, as at Harlow.[513]

Chantries continued to be founded up to the very eve of their general destruction: _e.g._ one at Bishopstone Church, Hereford, in 1532; in Lugwardine Church, in 1541; and in Welsh Newton, in a doubtful way, as late as 1547.[514]

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It may be worth while to say that the clergy were as much given to making arrangements for posthumous prayers for themselves and their families as the laity. A large proportion of the chantry chapels in cathedrals were founded for themselves by bishops. One of the earliest is that of Bishop Hugh of Wells, of Lincoln in A.D. 1235; Bishop Stavenby of Lichfield, who died 1238, set the example there; and so in other cathedrals. There is a pleasing touch of sentiment in Bishop Weseham’s foundation of a chantry in Lichfield Cathedral for himself and his friend, Bishop Grostete of Lincoln, of which cathedral he had himself been dean before his promotion to the episcopate.[515]

Not many parish priests founded chantries, because they were seldom rich enough to undertake anything so costly; but the numerous instances in their wills of provision made for trentals, month’s minds, and obits, attest their belief and feeling on the subject.[516] There is a quaint touch of professional experience in the condition of the bequest of John Cotes, Canon of Lincoln in 1433, to the resident canons, vicars, chaplains, poor clerks, and choristers attending his funeral, “and present at the whole office, not to those going like vagabonds through the middle of the church at the time of the said office.”[517]

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The majority of the chantries were founded at an existing altar of a cathedral, monastic, or parish church; but chantry chapels were specially provided for many of these services, and were the occasion of the introduction of a great deal of architectural variety and interest in existing churches. In the cathedrals, little chapels were screened off in various places. A very favourite locality for the burial of a bishop was between the great pillars of the nave or choir; the space between the pillars was converted into a little chapel by stone screens which enclosed the tomb and altar, and left space for a priest to minister and an acolyte to serve, while those attending the service stood or knelt outside, and could see or hear through the open-work of the screen. Without going further than Winchester Cathedral, we shall find illustrations of varieties of plan and elevation of these chantry chapels.

Those of Wykeham and Edyngdon on the south side of the nave have the space between two pillars screened off with elaborate tabernacle work of stone, and are groined above. Those of Fox and Gardiner are on the south and north sides of the choir; each has a small chamber adjoining the chapel. Those of Cardinal Beaufort and Waynflete are on the south and north sides of the retro-choir. On each side of the Lady Chapel is a space enclosed for a chantry chapel by wooden screens; that on the south (to Bishop Langton) has benches round the three sides, panelled at the back and canopied by a tester, for people attending the service.

In a parish church, the place provided for a memorial service was sometimes a chapel added to the choir of the church and opening into it, but partitioned by stone, or, more frequently, wooden screens; these chapels were sometimes architecturally beautiful, and added to the spaciousness and dignity of the church. But often, instead of being an addition to the spaciousness of the church, they were a practical infringement upon its space; for the most frequent provision for a chantry was made by screening off the east end of an aisle, either of the chancel or nave. There were rare examples of the chantry chapel being a detached building in the churchyard. At Winchester there is an example both of a chantry at the side of the College chapel and also of another, with a priest’s chamber over it,[518] in the middle of the cloister court.

It seems desirable to repeat here that some of the domestic chapels were founded as chantry chapels, or had a chantry subsequently founded within them; as the domestic chapel at the Vyne, Hants. There were two chantries in the chapel of Pontefract Castle; one in the chapel of the manor house at Topcliff, Yorkshire, and at Cransford, Dorset, and in the Bishop of Durham’s manor house at Darlington. Very probably the service in a domestic chapel always included some commemoration of the departed members of the family.

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It was only well-to-do people who could afford to found and endow a perpetual chantry; there were many less costly ways in which men showed their solicitude for their own well-being, and their affection for their belongings, by making such provision for mortuary prayers and masses as their means allowed. Sometimes provision is made for a chantry to last for a limited number of years. Thus--

John Cotes, of Tevelby, Canon of Lincoln in 1433, left for a chaplain to sing every day for twenty years, “to have £4 13_s._ 4_d._ per ann., and 3_s._ 4_d._ for wine, wax, and candles, and to engage in no other duty, spiritual or temporal, under pain of my anathema.”

Robert Astbroke, of Chepyng Wycombe, 1533, leaves money for “a priest to sing for my soul in Wicomb Church, at Ihus altar for x years, and I desire that there be no prieste admytted to the said servys but that can sing at least his playn song substancyally.”[519]

Thomas Booth, in Eccles Church in Lancashire, leaves 100 marks to two chaplains for ten years in two chapels--five marks a year each.[520]

Robert Johnson,[520] Alderman of York, leaves, “to the exhibition of an honest prest to synge at the alter of Our Lady daily by the space of vij yeres xxxv{li.} And I will that what prest that shall serve it every day, when that he hath saide masse, shall stand affore my grave [which was ‘affore the mydste of the alter’] in his albe, and ther to say the psalme of _De Profundis_, with the collettes, and then caste holy water upon my grave.”[521]

So, we have bequests of money to provide one or two chaplains for two years; still more frequently one or two chaplains for one year; frequently for a trental of masses, and an obit, that is for masses for thirty days after death, and after that a mass on the anniversary of death; most frequently of all, for mass on the first, third, seventh, and thirtieth day, and on the years’ day.[522] In most cases there was a sum left for wax tapers and other funeral expenses, and for a donation to every clerk, or layman, attending the funeral mass and the obit. In the case of the poorest, the parish priest said a mass for the dead, and committed the body, with the proper prayers, to the grave.[523]

Ralph Lord Cromwell, making his will in 1457, desired that his body should be buried in Tattershall Church, which he had rebuilt and made Collegiate,[524] and that three thousand masses should be said for his soul.

John Prestecote, 1411-1412 [seems to be a clergyman], leaves stock to churchwardens of several parishes to maintain his anniversary for ever, and anniversaries of others; leaves his best silver-covered cup to the Prioress of Polslo Convent, to remain in that house for ever, and be called by his name “Prestcote” in his memory.[525]

1503. Agnes Walworth leaves to the Church of St. Peter a cup of silver gilt, and to be prayed for in the Bead Roll for one whole year.[526]

1508. Wm. Harcote leaves his body to be buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard, and money to purchase a cross, according to the cross of St. Nicholas in the churchyard, to stand over his grave.[527]

1509. Wm. Plesyngton orders his body to be buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard; a barrel of beer, with bread,[528] to be given in the church at his cost to the poor of the parish; Sir Jeffrey, his ghostly father, to say a trental of masses for his soul in St. Peter’s Church, and to be paid 5_s._[529]

Here are some curiosities on the subject--

Dame Eliz. Bourchier, in 1499, leaves “_xx marcs for a yearly obit_, at St. Dunstan’s in the East, if the parson and parishioners will have it; if not, at some other church; and each of her servants, men and women, dwelling with her at the _time of death, to have a convenient black gown_ to pray for her soul.”[530]

In 1452, Thomas of Beckington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, consecrated a tomb which he had made for himself, and said mass, in full pontificals, for his own soul, for the souls of his parents, and all the faithful departed, in the presence of a vast congregation.[531]

The Commonalty of Oxford was required to found an anniversary for the souls of the clerks and others, about forty in number, killed in a Town and Gown riot on St. Scholastica’s Day, 1354, and to make an offering, to be distributed 1_d._ to each of forty poor scholars, and the rest to St. Mary’s Church. It was continued down to the Reformation.[532]

Roger Wylkynson, of Swyneshead, yeoman, 1499, leaves to his godson his principal messuage and lands, “to him and his heirs in tail, they keeping my anniversary in Swyneshed Church.”[533]

Thomas Normanton, of Tynwell, 1533, leaves his lands to his eldest son Richard in tail, “he and his heirs to keep my anniversary in Ketton Church for ever.”[534] The “for ever” lasted sixteen years.

John Toynton, of Lincoln, chaplain, 1431, directs his anniversary to be kept ten years for the following alms:--“In the offering at mass, 6_d._; in the tolling of the bells to the clerks, 2_d._; in candles at the mass, 2_d._; in bread at the dirge, 1_s._ 4_d._; six chaplains saying dirge and mass, 12_d._--that is, to each 2_d._; to poor and needy, 7_d._; to the parochial chaplain saying my name in his roll on Sundays at prayers, 4_d._; to the chantry priest, Robert Dalderby, of Lincoln [chaplain], a new vestment of ruby satin, with golden letters upon it, and a new vestment of Borde to Alexander the chaplain, for masses.”[535]

Robert Appulby of Lincoln leaves a bequest to the Guild of Clerks at Lincoln that his name may be recited among the names of the departed, and the antiphon _Alma Redemptoris Mater_.[536]

We gather with some certainty the amount of remuneration which was usually given to a chantry priest for his services. John Coates, we have seen, in 1433, directs that a chaplain shall say mass for him every day for twenty years, and shall have four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence per annum, besides three shillings and fourpence for wine and wax candles, and shall engage in no other service, spiritual or temporal, on pain of his anathema.[537]

Richard de Croxton, 1383, leaves £50 for masses for ten years; this would be at the rate of £5 a year. Thomas de Roos, lord of Hamlak and Belvoir, in 1412, leaves £400 for ten chaplains to say mass in his chapel of Belvoir, for eight years, which, again, amounts to £5 a year to each. J. de Haddon, Canon of Lincoln, 1374, leaves £21 for two chaplains for two years. Beatrix Hanlay, 1389, leaves 20 marks and a silver cup to Thornton Abbey for masses, and £30 of silver to six priests to celebrate for a year. So that it is abundantly evident that £5 a year was the usual stipend for a chantry priest. Elizabeth Davy, 1412, leaves cc{l.} for masses, which is to be kept in some secret place in Lincoln Cathedral, and distributed annually to the chaplains.

Nicholas Sturgeon, priest in 1454, bequeaths to the Church of St. Andrew, Asperton, Herefordshire, a vestment of black for priest, deacon, and sub-deacon of the price of £10 or within; his exequies and obit day to be kept solemnly there during the term of seven years, for the expenses of which he bequeaths 46_s._, that is, for every year 6_s._ 4_d._

Here is a very curious example of a nun being paid to say prayers for people living and dead: John of Leek, Rector of Houghton, 1459, leaves--

to Isabella Chawelton, sister of St. Katharine’s, Lincoln, 40_s._ to pray for the soul of her sister Grace, and my soul.[538]

When we refer to the returns of the “Valor,” we are confirmed in the conclusion that £5 was the normal stipend of a chantry priest; but a few, through the liberality of the endowment, received more, like the two chaplains of the Black Prince’s chantry with their £12 a year; and many received less, as may be seen in the volumes of the “Valor” _passim_.

William Rayne (of Coltisbroke, 1535), leaves to his nephew, if he shall be ordained “a priest, to have £5 a year to sing for me for five years, except he be at my wyf’s bording and bedding, and if he soo be, then four marks a yere.”[539]

So that a priest’s board and lodging was worth £5 - 4 × 13_s._ 4_d._ = £2 13_s._ 4_d._ The lodging with the widow would be consistent with the idea that a chantry priest or annueller was a kind of chaplain to the family. This conjecture is supported by the statute of 36 Ed. III., c. 8, which, in consequence of the dearth of parish priests after the Black Plague, desired to lessen the number engaged in mortuary services; it forbade any layman to pay a priest more than 5 marks, and if retained to abide at his table, that was to be reckoned as equal to 40_s._[540] As part of the same policy, a constitution of Archbishop Islop, in 1362, fixed the stipend of a chantry priest at 5 marks.[541]

Archbishop Islip, 1362,[542] says, “We are certainly informed by common fame and experience that modern priests, through covetousness and love of ease, not content with reasonable salaries, demand excessive pay for their labours, and receive it; and do so despise labour and study that they wholly refuse as parish priests to serve in churches or chapels, or to attend the cure of souls, though fitting salaries are offered them, and prefer to live in a leisurely manner by celebrating annuals for the quick and dead; and so parish churches and chapels remain unofficiated, destitute of parochial chaplains, and even proper curates, to the grievous danger of souls; whereupon he goes on to decree that all unbeneficed chaplains fitted for cure of souls shall be required to put aside any private obsequies, and officiate wherever the ordinary shall appoint them, and at six marks of annual stipend, while priests without cure of souls shall be content with five marks.”

These services for the dead made work for a considerable number of clerics. Sometimes, no doubt, the parish priest celebrated the month’s mind and the obit, and perhaps the trental also; but when a competent provision had been made for the purpose it is probable that it was usual to employ a distinct person to fulfil the stipulated services. The beneficed clergy are indeed accused of sometimes running away from their own poor benefices to take engagements of this sort. “Piers Ploughman” says:--

Parsons and parish preistes pleyned hem to the bisshope, That hire parishes weren povere sith the pestilence tyme,[543] To have a licence and leve at London to dwelle, And syngen ther for symonie, for silver is swete.

Chaucer says of his poor parson--

He sett not his benefice to hire, And lefte his sheep accombred in the mire, And ran unto London unto Sainte Poules,[544] To seeken him a chanterie for souls, Or with a Brotherhode to be withold, But dwelt at home and kepte well his fold.

But that some poor parsons did so, and that their bishops allowed it, we have the evidence of the Episcopal Registers.[545]

One result of these occasional engagements for a month, or a year, or a few years, was that a considerable number of priests made a precarious living in this easy way, and in many cases were not very useful members of society or very respectable members of the clerical body.[546]

Chaucer has introduced into his “Shipman’s Tale” one of these priests “living in a leisurely manner by celebrating annuals for the quick and dead”:--

In London was a priest, an annueller, That therein dwelled hadde many a year, Which was so pleasant and so serviceable Unto the wife thereas he was at table, That she would suffer him no thing to pay For board ne lodging, went he never so gay And spending silver had he ryht ynoil.[547]

The ordinary chantry priest was under no canonical obligation to help the parish priest in his general duties; but in some cases the foundation deed of the chantry required that the cantarist should assist at Divine worship on Sundays and festivals for the greater honour of the service; and in some cases the priest is expressly required by his foundation deed to help the vicar in the cure of souls, as in the parish churches of Helmsley, Middleton, etc.

Our Lady’s chantry priest in Rothwell Church (1494), to celebrate mass daily in chantry and other Divine service, and be in the high quire all festival days at mattins, mass, and evensong; and to help to minister sacraments in the parish.

Margaret Blade, widow, endowed the chantry of our Lady in Kildewick Parish, in 1505, for a priest to help Divine service in the quire, to help the curate in time of necessity, and also to sing mass of our Lady on Saturday and Sunday, “if he have convenient help.”[548]

Sometimes the chantry priest was required to say Divine service at an unusual hour for the convenience of portions of the people; thus, at St. Agnes, York, the chantry service had been between eleven and twelve, unusually late, and was altered by the advice of the parishioners to an equally abnormal early hour, viz. between four and five in the morning, as well for their accommodation as for travelling people, who desired to hear mass before setting out on their journey.[549] Many churches had such an early service, called the “Morrow Mass.”

If thou have eny wey to wende, I rede thou here a masse to ende, In the morennynge if thou may, Thou shalt not leose of thi travayle, Not half a foote of wey.[550]

Some of the chantry chapels were practically chapels-of-ease at a distance from the parish church. For parishes having once been established, the rights of the patrons, incumbents, parishioners, and others interested were so safely secured by the law that it was difficult for any one to make an alteration in the existing arrangements. Even down to the passing of the general Church Building Acts in the present century, a private Act of Parliament was necessary to legalize the subdivision of a parish. When the growth of new groups of population at a distance from the parish church made it desirable to provide the means of Divine worship and pastoral oversight there, if the incumbent desired to make the provision, he could do it by building chapels, and supplying them with chaplains at his own cost, and under his own control. If a lay proprietor desired to make the provision for the people about him, he could do it by getting the bishop’s leave to found a chantry, and the king’s licence to endow it notwithstanding the Mortmain Act. Accordingly, a number of chapels were founded, which were technically chantry chapels, but really chapels-of-ease for an outlying population; _e.g._ the chantries at Brentwood, in the parish of Southweald; Billericay, in the parish of Great Burstead; Foulness island, in the parish of Wakering; in the street of Great Dunmow, half a mile from the parish church, all in Essex; of Woodstock; of Quarrindon, in the parish of Barrow; of St. Giles, in the parish of Stretton, both in Notts, were all built at a distance of a mile or more from their parish churches. At Macclesfield, the Savage Chantry, founded by the Archbishop of York of that name, who died 1506, was a chapel-of-ease two miles distant from the parish church. There were a considerable number of these outlying chantries in the extensive parishes of Yorkshire, at distances of from half a mile to two or three miles from the parish church, and in some cases divided from the parish church by waters liable to be flooded; in some parishes there were two or three such chantries; as two at Topcliff, two in Sherifholm, two in Strenshall, two in Wath, three in Northallerton, besides a chapel seven miles off served by the vicar’s chaplain; one in each of the parishes of Helmsley, Kirby Misperton, Malton, etc.

In some of these chapels there was no endowment for a priest, or it was insufficient, and the inhabitants of the villages taxed themselves voluntarily to make up a stipend; thus, at Ayton, the rate of payment was for a husbandman (? tenant farmer) 8_d._, a cottager with land 4_d._, a cottager without land 2_d._ a quarter.

Here is another similar case which presents us with quite a picture:--In 1472, the people of Haxby complain to the archdeacon that “they inhabit so unreasonable fer from ther parisch chirche that the substance [majority] of the said inhabitauntes for impotenseye and feblenes, farrenes of the long way, and also for grete abundance of waters and perlouse passages at small brigges for people in age and unweldye, bethurn these and ther nex parische chirche, they may not come with ese or in seasonable tyme at their saide parishe chirche, as Cristen peple should, and as they wold, so they pray for leave and help for a chaplain of their own.”[551]

* * * * *

A grammar school was often provided for a parish under the convenient conditions of a chantry; the schoolmaster being a priest, it was no great addition to his duties to require him to add to his mass prayer for his founders; it was very natural that the boys who profited by the foundation should also be required to join in the commemoration services for their benefactor.[552]

We quote the whole scheme of the foundation at Blackburn as an example of its kind.

In 1514, fifth year of Henry VIII., Thomas, Earl of Derby, and the parishioners of Blackburn, each contributed lands, etc., to be held by certain trustees for the foundation of a chantry in the church there, in the chapel of our blessed Lady, in the south aisle there. The chantry priest was to be “an honest seculer prest, and no reguler, sufficiently lerned in gramer and playn song, y{f} any such can be gotten, that shall kepe continually a fre gramer schole, and maintaine and kepe the one syde of the quire, as one man may, in his surplice, every holiday throughout the year.” And if no secular priest can be found that is able and sufficiently “lerned in gramer and plain song,” then they were to find “an able secular priest, who is expert, and can sing both pricke song and plain song, and hath a sight in descant, who shall teach a free song school in Blackburn.” In all his masses he was to pray for the good estate of the then Earl and Lady of Derby, and their ancestors, and all benefactors to the chantry, quick or dead, and for all Christian souls. And every Sunday and holiday in the year, after his mass, he was to turn him to the people, and exhort them to prayer for all the said persons, and to say “the salme _De profundis_, with a _Paternoster_ and an _Ave Maria_, with special suffrages after, and funeral collect, as well for the quick as for the dead. And every Saturday and holiday he shall sing the masse of Our Lady to note, and every quarter day he and his scholars shall sing a solemn dirge for the souls aforesaid. And if the chantry priest shall take any money or profit to say any trental, or otherwise to pray for souls other than those specified in the present foundation, he shall give half the profit towards the reparation or ornament of the said chantry; and if he shall make default in any of his duties, he shall pay 4_d._ for each such default, to be bestowed on the reparation and ornamentation of the chantry.” In summer he was to say his masses at 8 a.m., and in winter at 10 a.m.[553]

So, in 1468, Richard Hammerton endowed a chantry in the chapel of Our Lady and St. Anne, in the church of Long Preston, co. York, “that the incumbent should pray for the soul of the founder, help to perform divine service in the choir in time of necessity, teach a grammar and song school to the children of the parish, make a special obit yearly for the soul of the founder, distribute at the same time six shillings to the poor in bread, and make a sermon by himself or deputy once a year.”[554]

There were four chantries in Burnley Church, and belonging to the Townley Chantry a _parva aula_, on the west side of the churchyard,[555] occupied as a grammar school till 1695, when another was erected in a more convenient situation.[556]

At Giggleswick, in Yorkshire, and at Tutthill, in the same county, the rood chantry priest was required to be “sufficiently seen” in plain song and grammar, and therefore, no doubt, was intended to teach them.[557]

The gild priest of the Jesus Gild, Prittlewell, Essex, celebrated daily at the altar of St. Mary, in the parish church, and had also charge of the education of the youth of the parish.

Skipton Grammar School was founded in 1548. The appointment vested in the vicar and churchwardens, for the time being. The master was to teach certain Latin authors, to attend in the choir of the parish church on all Sundays and festivals, and when service is performed by prick song, unless hindered by some reasonable excuse; to celebrate before seven in the morning on such days, and three other days in the week; to be vested in a surplice, and sing or read as shall seem meet to the vicar.[558]

In 1529 an act passed forbidding any one after Michaelmas to receive any stipend for singing masses for the dead; some of the patrons proceeded to seize upon the chantry lands and furniture. Another act on the accession of Ed. VI., put all the colleges, chantries, free chapels, and other miscellaneous “endowments for superstitious uses” into the hands of the king, and commissioners were appointed to search them out and take possession of them. Some few of the chapels which had served outlying populations continued to exist and serve their purpose, the endowments were ruthlessly confiscated, but the inhabitants purchased the building of the crown or the grantee, and subscribed among themselves to provide a scanty stipend for a curate.[559]

Many of the grammar schools which were suppressed were refounded and endowed as King Edward VI. Grammar Schools.

The Returns of the Commissioners are in the Record Office, and there is an index to them arranged under counties. The Harleian MS., 605, in the British Museum, is also a catalogue of gilds and chantries.

Here follow some notes, from these sources, of curious endowments--

Fernditch and at Ordell, Beds., for “a Lamp and a Drinking” in the church.

Emberton, Bucks., “for a Drinking.”

Great Horkesley, Essex; Cranfield and Steventon, Beds.; for “a Drink for the Poor.”

Uppingham, Rutland, for “a Drinking on Rogation Day.”

Wynge, Bucks., “for Bride Ale, Child Ale, Marriages, and Dirges, with lawful games.”

Coventry, “for a preacher.”

Townley, Suffolk, for “a Lamp and watching the Sepulchre.”

Hempstead, Essex, “for discharging the Tax of the poor who may not have to dispend yearly above 40_s._”

“For the Bead Roll,” at Barford, Beds., Chulgrave, Polloxhill, Richmond, Sondon, Wichhampstead, Eston, Dorlaston.

“For finding a Conduit,” at St. Mary Aldermary.

“For repairing Roads and Bridges,” in several places.

“For the Poor,” in several places.

At Hendry and at Wingfield, Suffolk, “for setting out Soldiers.”