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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
It has long been a truism that the chantry priest, rather than the monk, friar, or member of a large collegiate church, is the most significant figure if we wish to understand how organised religion affected the lives of most citizens of most medieval English towns. Miss Wood-Legh, in her recently published and long-awaited Perpetual Chantries in Britain, has however been the first to provide a detailed demonstration of the sustained interest taken by founders, prelates, parishioners, and corporate bodies in the effective administration and continued welfare of the perpetual chantry. Miss Wood-Legh justifiably describes her work as the ‘first detailed study in English of the chantry as an institution’ and its publication ought to lead to a long-overdue investigation of the exact social and economic, as well as religious, role of the medieval chantry. The hope expressed by Professor Hamilton Thompson almost sixty years ago, ‘that the student of chantry history may possess a more complete and compact apparatus for his work than is at present within his reach’, has been largely unfulfilled, not least in York itself.
Page 22 of note 1 Wood-Legh, K.L.: Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge, 1965), ix Google Scholar.
Page 22 of note 2 ‘The Chantry Certificates for Leicestershire’, ed. Thompson, A. H., Associated Architectural Societies’ Reports and Papers XXX (1909-10), 486 Google Scholar.
Page 23 of note 1 Thompson, A. H., The English Clergy and their Organisation in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), 139 Google Scholar.
Page 23 of note 2 Dickens, A.G., The English Reformation (London, 1964), 207 Google Scholar.
Page 23 of note 3 Yorkshire Chantry Surveys [YCS],, ed. Page, W., Surtees Society (1892-3), II, 428-73. An identical number of city chantries had been surveyed by the Henrician commissioners two years previously (YCS, I, 5-84); but whereas Richard Wateby’s chantry of St Katherine in St John’s, Ouse Bridge End, was not included in the 1546 returns, that of William Langtoft in Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, failed to appear in 1548 (ibid. I, 53; II, 459)Google Scholar.
Page 23 of note 4 York Civic Records, ed. Raine, A., Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series (1939-53), IV, 144;Google Scholar Dickens, A. G., ‘A Municipal Dissolution of Chantries, 1536’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, XXXVI (1944-7), 164-73Google Scholar. Four of these seven chantries appeared, with their incumbents, in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of the preceding year. The Valor (V, 25-30) listed a total of 40 chantries within York city churches and chapels but failed to survey several parishes, including two (Holy Trinity, Goodtamgate and St Michael, Spurriergate) which were considered in 1546 and 1548.
Page 24 of note 1 The York certificates recorded no chantries in the parishes of All Saints, North Street, St Martin’s, Coney Street, and St Martin’s, Micklegate; and it would seem dangerous to assume (as, e.g., in VCH, City of York [1961], 388) that the numerous chantries known to have existed within these churches had all decayed by the 1540’s.
Page 24 of note 2 This estimate includes several chantries about which little or nothing is known except for the appearance of a licence for alienation in mortmain on the royal patent rolls. The York evidence therefore leads to a conclusion somewhere between the extreme view of Professor Jordan (Philanthropy in England, 1480-1660, [London, 1959], 51) that ‘it was quite uncommon for a chantry to survive at all for more than a century or so’, and Miss Wood-Le- gh’s statement that’in the vast majority of cases, where there is evidence of the foundation of a chantry, there is an entry in the chantry certificates to show that it continued till the suppression’ (Perpetual Chantries in Britain, 128-9).
Page 25 of note 1 There were at least 56 perpetual chantry foundations in the Minster, of which all but 14 seem to have been in existence before 1400: see Fabric Rolls of York Minster, ed. Raine, J., Surtees Society (1858), 274–306; VCH, York, 347Google Scholar. Although seriously out-of-date and heavily dependent on James Torre’s manuscript ‘Antiquities of York Minster’ (1690-1), Raine’s list of Minster chantries has never been superseded.
Page 25 of note 2 Jacob, E. F., The Fifteenth Century (Oxford 1961) 289 Google Scholar.
Page 25 of note 3 R. H. Skaife collected most of the relevant information in the appendix, ‘Burial Places of Civic Officials’, to Volume III of his manuscript ‘Civic Officials and Parliamentary Representatives of York’ (York City Library).
Page 26 of note 1 York, St. Anthony’s Hall: Probate Register III, fo. 607;Google Scholar II, fos. 513-4; ‘Some Early Civic Wills of York’, ed. Cook, R.B., Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. and Papers, XXXII (1913), 310–11 Google Scholar; XXXI (1911), 323-5.
Page 26 of note 2 York Probate Register I, fo. 102; Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. and Papers, XXVIII (1906), 853-7; F. Drake, Eboracum (1736), 318.
Page 26 of note 3 Calendar of Patent Rolls [CPR], 1327-30, 309; York Fabric Rolls, 303.
Page 26 of note 4 YCS, I, 19; York Fabric Rolls, 290, 303. Cf. Testamenta Eboracensia, Surtees Society (1836-1902), I, 87, 91; Riley, M. A., ‘The Foundation of Chantries in the Counties of Nottingham and York, 1350-1400’, Yorks. Arch. Journal, XXXIII (1938), 159–60 Google Scholar.
Page 27 of note 1 York Fabric Rolls, 206, 304; Dickens, ‘Municipal Dissolution’, 171.
Page 27 of note 2 YCS, I, 7-9; VCH, Yorkshire, III (1913), 385-6.
Page 27 of note 3 CPR, 1334-38, 121. Ludham also founded at least one chantry in the Minster (YCS, I, 35; York Fabric Rolls, 293).
Page 27 of note 4 YCS, I, 71; II, 469; cf. Valor Eccl. V, 28.
Page 28 of note 1 YCS, I, 68-70; II, 465-6; CPR, 1307-13, 343; 1401-05, 193; VCH, York, 391-2. Thanks to Elisabeth Basy’s handsome endowment, hers was the wealthiest of all York city chantries by the 1530’s (Valor Eccl., V, 29). The migration of wealthy citizens from York into the countryside (cf. E. Miller in VCH, York, 46,113) inevitably reduced the number of patrons of chantries who were resident in York. Thus, by the 16th century, the Thwaites of North Ingelsby, Lincolnshire, had inherited the right to present to the Graa chantry at St Mary, Castlegate; and at the same date the patronage of the junior Robert Holme’s chantry in St Anne’s chapel, Foss Bridge, was held by Holme’s descendants at Elvington (York, St. Anthony’s Hall: Reg. Geo. Neville, [R.I. 22], fos. 107, 128v, 136v; Reg. Wolsey, fo. 19v). Similarly, on 22 Feb. 1464 William Salley of Saxton in the West Riding presented a chaplain to the Salley chantry in St Michael’s, Spur- riergate (Reg. Will. Booth, fo. 25); cf. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 51, Reg. Kempe, fo. 395v.
Page 28 of note 2 York Memorandum Book, ed. Sellers, M., Surtees Society (1911-14), II, 68;Google Scholar A. Raine, Mediaeval York, (1955), 213-6.
Page 29 of note 1 York City Muniments, G. 70, nos. 1, 2, 5, 8. At least 36 perpetual chantries were founded in the city churches between 1310 and 1340.
Page 29 of note 2 Ibid., nos. 30-32, 34, 35. Ecclesiastical licence to the mayor and citizens of York to celebrate ‘tres missas peculiares cotidie’ at this chapel was granted on 14 Nov. 1424 (York Sede Vacante Register, 1299-1554, fo. 388v; York Fabric Rolls, 238).
Page 29 of note 3 York Civic Records, I, 101; II, 62-3, 141-2; III, 18, 28-30, 40, 174; IV, 123, 166-7. Cf. York Mem. Book, II, 39-40, 51, 111-12, 134, 273-4.
Page 29 of note 4 39 churches within the city were assessed for a parish subsidy by York jurors in 1428 (York Mem. Book, II, 131-4; VCH, York, 365-6).
Page 30 of note 1 YCS, I, 62-8; II, 471-3; VCH, York, 402.
Page 30 of note 2 Ecclesiastical Proceedings of Bisbop Barnes, ed. Raine, J., Surtees Society (1850), lxxvii–lxxxii Google Scholar.
Page 30 of note 3 Valor Eccl., I, 378-84; similarly, at Bristol, there were 30 chantries distributed among 17 parishes (VCH, Gloucestershire, II [1907] 27).
Page 30 of note 4 CPR, 1396-99, 588; 1405-08, 423; 1408-13, 52; YCS, I, 64, 68; II, 471.
Page 30 of note 5 CPR, 1391-96, 145; 1401-05, 496. When Thomas Holme, mayor 1374-5, made his will shortly before his death in 1406 he commanded that three chaplains should be maintained at his chantries in St Mary’s, Castle-gate; but only one of his chantries, served by one priest, survived into the sixteenth century (Assoc. Arcbit. Soc. Rep. and Papers, XXVIII (1906), 870-1; YCS, I, 45; II, 467).
Page 31 of note 1 York City Records, G. 70, nos. 1-40. These foundation documents impose an annual income of more than 6 marks in the case of only 6 chantries: those of Adam del Bank at All Saints, North Street; of Nicholas Blackburn and Robert Holme at St Anne’s Chapel, Foss Bridge; of Thomas Nelson at Holy Trinity, Micklegate; of John Acaster at All Saints, Pavement; and of Richard Wateby, as augmented by John de Gisburn, at St John’s, Ouse Bridge End. All seven men served as mayors of York.
Page 35 of note 2 Valor Eccl., V, 25-30.
Page 35 of note 3 The average annual revenue of Lancashire chantries at the dissolution was calculated at approximately 8 marks net (History of Lancashire Chantries, ed. F. R. Raines, Chetham Society (1862), I, xiii); and only two of the 23 perpetual chantries visited in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1548 were valued at less than 5 marks ‘clere’ (Proceedings of Bishop Barnes, lxxvii-lxxxii). The York Minster chantries were, however, considerably better endowed than those in the city churches (VCH, York, 146).
Page 32 of note 1 York Probate Register III, fo. 246.
Page 32 of note 2 The most striking example of this decline is that of the Vicars Choral of York Minster whose income from some 250 York tenements dropped from £ 160 to £ 100 a year between 1426 and 1456: see Bartlett, J. N., ‘The Expansion and Decline of York in the Later Middle Ages’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd. ser., XII (1959), 28, 30, 32Google Scholar.
Page 33 of note 1 A similar decline is evident in the Minster where only 7 new perpetual chantries are known to have been founded between 1401 and 1450; 6 between 1451 and 1500; and 1 after 1500. Mr David Palliser has been kind enough to confirm that Sir John Gilliot’s bequest (in his will of 28 Dec. 1509: Test. Ebor., V, 12-17) of £ 400 ‘to funde a chauntre in the new chapel in Seynt Savour kirk, where my body lith, for a chauntry preist to syng for my soule’ marks the close of perpetual chantry foundation within York. Several York aldermen continued to augment existing city chantries until 1529, in which year such augmentations also cease (ibid., 214-5,268-9, 270).
Page 33 of note 2 Of the 253 dated chantry and other foundations surveyed in 1546, 61 were founded between 1450 and 1500 and another 47 between 1500 and the dissolution (YCS, I, vii). Due to their omission of chantries which had decayed before the 1540’s, all calculations based on the chantry certificates are likely to prove inaccurate; and this perhaps accounts for Miss Riley’s misleading view (op. cit., 254) that ‘The custom of founding chantries was not as prevalent in the fourteenth century as it became in the later years of the Middle Ages’.
Page 33 of note 3 The last Yorkshire chantry to be founded before the suppression was, according to the 1546 chantry certificates, established in the parish church of Doncaster as late as January 1533 (YCS, I, 179). The collegiate church of Manchester provides an example of a parish where 7 out of 11 chantries were founded after 1498 (Hist. Lancs. Chantries, I, 25-56).
Page 33 of note 4 Register of William Wickwane, ed. Brown, W., Surtees Society (1907), 41 Google Scholar; VCH, York, 393, 402.
Page 34 of note 1 York City Records, G. 70, nos. 37, 38; York, St. Anthony’s Hall: Reg. Thomas Rotheram, part 1, fos. 129-30v; YCS, I, 47, 62, 78-9, 83; II, 459, 463-4, 471-2.
Page 34 of note 2 CPR, 1350-54, 5; 1377-81, 256, 285-6; YCS, I, 49-50, 59, 77; II, 455, 457, 470. Cf. York Freemen’s Reg., 1272-1558, Surtees Society (1897), 35, 40.
Page 34 of note 3 When John Leland visited York he thought it necessary to explain Nicholas Blackburn, senior’s, reputation as a munificent founder of chantries on the grounds that ‘This Blakeburne had very onthrifty children’ (Leland, Itinerary, ed. L. Toulmin Smith [1906-10], V, 144). Leland’s notes on the Blackburn chantries are curiously garbled and inaccurate; and the truth of his allegation seems unlikely in view of the terms of Blackburn’s own will of February 1432 (Test. Ebor., II, 17-21). On the other hand, the childless merchant (as in the well-known case of Richard Whittington of London) was naturally especially likely to endow religious and chari-able institutions: William Bowes, mayor of York 1417-18, 1428-9, left instructions in his will that the mayor and commonalty should establish a perpetual chantry for his soul only in the unlikely event of the death of all his lawful issue (York Probate Register III, fos. 580v-583).
Page 35 of note 1 Jordan, Philanthropy in England, 306.
Page 35 of note 2 Test. Ebor., IV, 121.
Page 36 of note 1 York Probate Register III, fos. 580v-583, most inadequately summaris ed in Test. Ebor., II, 69-70.
Page 36 of note 2 York Probate Register II, fo. 619.
Page 36 of note 3 Thomson, J. A. F., ‘Piety and Charity in Late Medieval London’, JEH, XVI (1965), 191–2 Google Scholar.
Page 36 of note 4 York Mem. Book, II, 17-24, 39-40, 111-12; York Civic Records, I, 101, 141-2; III, 40, 129-30; IV, 166-7.
Page 37 of note 1 On 10 March 1406 Beatrice Sancton, wife of a prominent York draper and future mayor, bequeathed 2/- each to six clerks ‘nuper moranti nobis-cum’ (Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. and Papers, XXXII (1914), 578-9); cf. York Mem. Book, II, 223, for the names of three chaplains serving Thomas Nelson in 1463.
Page 37 of note 2 As, e.g. in the will of Sir Richard York (8 April 1498) where the testator’s references to his plans to augment an existing chantry close with the request ‘quod dominus Thomas Gripthorp, capellanus meus, habeat pro termino vitae’ (Test. Ebor., IV, 134).
Page 37 of note 3 York Mem. Book, II, 100; cf. Regs. Wolsey, fos. 19, 47v, 49v; Kempe, fos. 392v, 402.
Page 38 of note 1 York Probate Register III, fo. 488.
Page 38 of note 2 York Mem. Book, II, 19.
Page 38 of note 3 I am grateful to the staff of the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York Minster Library and Mrs. Joyce Percy of York City Library for their generous assistance at the time of the preparation of this article.
