Chantry
A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings:[1] In the Medieval Era through to the Age of Enlightenment it was commonly believed such liturgies might help atone for misdeeds and assist the soul to obtain eternal peace.
[4] Firstly, a chantry could mean the prayers and liturgy in the Christian church for the benefit of the dead, as part of the search for atonement for sins committed during their lives.
It was believed such masses might help atone for misdeeds and with mercy enable the soul to be granted eternal peace in the presence of God.
[5] At the time of the Dissolution, chantries were abolished and their assets were sold or granted to persons at the discretion of Henry and his son King Edward VI, via the Court of Augmentations.
[6][7] The Christian practices of prayer and offering mass for the repose of the soul of a deceased person are recorded as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries respectively.
[2] The custom of having quantities of masses offered for the dead is first recorded in the early 7th century, in connection with the developing understanding of transferable spiritual credit and clerical stipends.
By around the year 700 the practice had emerged across Western Europe of priests saying multiple masses simultaneously, driving the proliferation of side altars.
Ninth-century France and England have records of numerous such undertakings between monasteries and churches, whereby they would offer prayers for the souls of deceased members of each other's communities.
[9] Crouch (2001)[10] points to the parallel development of communities or colleges of secular priests or canons as another theory of influence on the evolution of the chantry.
Henry II founded at least one daily mass for his soul by his gift of the manor of Lingoed in Gwent to Dore Abbey in Herefordshire; he provided for the services in perpetuity of four monk-priests.
King Philip II of France endowed priests at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris for the soul of Duke Geoffrey.
In non-royal society, the first perpetual mass was endowed by Richard FitzReiner, Sheriff of the City of London, in his private chapel within his manor of Broad Colney in Hertfordshire.
A perpetual chantry consisted of one or more priests, in a private free-standing chapel, usually licensed by the local bishop (such as the surviving one at Noseley, Leicestershire) or in an aisle of a greater church.
Following the Reformation in England initiated by King Henry VIII, Parliament passed an Act in 1545 which defined chantries as representing misapplied funds and misappropriated lands.
His young son and successor, King Edward VI, signed a new Act in 1547, which ended 2,374 chantries and guild chapels and seized their assets; it also instituted inquiries to determine all of their possessions.
), Roger Beaple, George Pyne, gent., Jacob Wescombe, Gilbert Hareys, Robert Marlen, Thomas Mathewe, James Beaple, George Baker, James Downe, William Bayly, John Collybeare, Robert Collybeare, and John Knyll of Barnestaple; 1 Chancery and Chapel of St Anne lately dissolved in Barnestaple with 1 house with land belonging to the late Chancery and Chapel; also 1 house and land in Barnestaple which John Littlestone of Barnestaple, merchant, and John Buddle, potter, granted to (i).One of the most significant effects of the chantries, and the most significant loss resulting from their suppression, was educational, as chantry priests had provided education.
