§ 11. To the medieval mind, the habit of a non-resident rector, holding several churches in plurality, was a matter of course, which cannot be judged by the moral standard of our own day. It must be regarded simply as a fact, not as an abuse. The rector was required to see that his churches were properly served, and probably, like his successors after the Reformation, he paid a curate to do his work in each of his churches. In some cases, like monastic impropriators, he made an arrangement by which a vicar was provided with a fixed stipend; and now and then a vicar was properly instituted by the bishop at his presentation. This was the regular course of procedure in parish churches attached to prebends in cathedral and collegiate churches, which were held for the most part by king’s clerks, and often by foreigners appointed by the pope. But it is clear that, where a man held ten or twelve churches at once, they might be served very irregularly. Again, no form of litigation in the middle ages was so common as that between two or more claimants of an advowson. The sub-division of the ownership of a manor might and did constantly lead to a dispute between rival patrons for the presentation to a living. Thus, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, the church of Adlingfleet in Yorkshire became the subject of a long law-suit between two separate patrons, the archbishop of York, and their presentees, which was protracted for nearly thirty years before the royal and papal courts. The candidates, all non-residents, strove to obstruct each other. In the parish itself they made attempts to defend their rights by force, and it is difficult to see how, during this period of strife, the cure of souls could have been adequately served. Churches appropriated to monasteries were more fortunate; for they, in most instances, had the advantage of a resident vicar, and the appropriation removed disputes as to the patronage.

§ 12. Pluralism and litigation, in themselves, had no noticeable effect on architectural development. But they led to a desire, on the part of the parishioners, for resident clergy with an endowment independent of the caprices of lay patrons. And this led to the establishment of chantry priests at the altars of churches, which had a powerful effect upon the architectural growth of the churches in which they served. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, and from that time to the Reformation, the foundation of chantries in parish churches became a common thing. Zeal for the foundation of monasteries had spent itself. Lay benefactors acquired the habit of alienating land, not to some religious house, but to one or more priests who, as a condition of the gift, should say mass daily at one of the altars of a parish church for the good estate of the giver and other persons named by him, and for their souls after death. These endowments of services were known as chantries, and were intended to continue for ever. Many chantries were founded in cathedral and monastery churches; but, as time went on, the church of the parish in which the benefactor lived was more and more frequently chosen as their site. That this had been always the custom is probable; but it was a custom which certainly was not universal until the later middle ages. From the time of the enactment of the statute of mortmain, we possess a series of royal licences for the foundation of chantries and gifts of land to chantry priests, which are invaluable in tracing the history of the English parish church. A chantry, however, is a service, not the building in which it is held. It might be founded at the high altar of a church, but more usually was connected with one of the lesser altars. It was natural, however, that a founder would be willing to do something for the repair of the part of the church in which his chantry was held. Repair took the form of enlargement and rebuilding; and while special chantry chapels were sometimes built as excrescences from the main body of the church, the usual building which was done in connexion with a chantry implied the widening or addition of an aisle.

§ 13. A good concrete example of this procedure is the church of Beckingham, five miles east of Newark-on-Trent, a building of various periods, but chiefly of the early part of the thirteenth century. The aisles of the nave are wide, and belong, in their present condition, to the fourteenth century. At the end of each are distinct indications of the former presence of an altar. The parson of Beckingham in the second quarter of the fourteenth century was Thomas Sibthorpe, a man of some substance, and one of the royal clerks. His benefactions to the church of his native village of Sibthorpe and to Beckingham involved him in some litigation, ample records of which are to be found in the Patent Rolls. In 1332 he obtained a licence to found a chantry in the chapel of St Mary, in the north part of Beckingham church, and by the end of 1347, he built the chapel of St Anne, on the south side of the church. Both the existing chapels agree with one another in date; and we may safely infer that Sibthorpe probably widened, and certainly rebuilt both the aisles between 1332 and 1347. He evidently intended his chapel of St Mary to be of some importance, as the chantry priest was called the warden, and was probably intended to be the head of a small college, such as existed at Sibthorpe. Of a chantry in the chapel of St Anne we know nothing: Sibthorpe endowed two candles to be burned there at certain times. An interesting feature of this fourteenth century rebuilding is that the north and south doorways, both of late twelfth century work, were removed to the new walls.

§ 14. The growth of chantry foundations formed the most remarkable feature of the lay activity of the later middle ages, and is treated in the next chapter with a view to its influence on architectural progress. We may sum up the influence of the historical facts already indicated upon the fabric of the parish church in the following conclusions: (1) The origin of the parish church was the spiritual need of the private estate. (2) The lord of the manor was the founder and provided the fabric. (3) The work of the fabric was entrusted to local masons. (4) In the division of expense, the rector became responsible for the chancel and the altar from which he received his dues. (5) The parishioners were responsible for the fabric of the nave. (6) In churches appropriated to monasteries, the chancel was the only part of the fabric for which the monastery was responsible, and a part of its responsibility was usually laid upon the vicar. (7) Where the monastery was lord of the manor, it would take its share of the building and up-keep of the church with the other parishioners. We shall see in a later chapter some concrete instances of manorial and monastic influence at work upon the structure of the church.

[ CHAPTER II]
THE CHANTRY CHAPEL IN THE PARISH CHURCH

§ 15. The chantry and the guild chapel had so important an influence on the plan of the parish church, and especially of the larger church, that they deserve further consideration, in company with the anomalies of plan which are their result. Chantries increased in number during the fourteenth century, and, from the period of the Black Death to the Reformation, had an ever growing importance. At Grantham, where it is clear that the enlargement of the church was due to the increase of chantries, three were founded in 1349, two of them at altars inside the church. In 1392 two new chantries were founded, at the altars of Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, and the maintenance of chantries at the altars of St Mary and St John Baptist was increased by new benefactions. Thus, to large churches, a large staff of priests became attached. Although Grantham was never incorporated as a collegiate church, the body of clergy which served it seem to have had common services in quire together, and to have been known as the ‘college.’ The chantry priests of a large church would benefit from incorporation in the ordinary course of things, and it very often happened that they were formed into a regular college, or that provisions were made affecting their common life. St William’s college at York was founded for the chantry priests of the minster in 1461 by archbishop Neville and his brother, the king-maker. In 1482–3 archbishop Rotherham founded his college of Jesus at Rotherham, to which, as a secondary provision of the foundation, the chantry priests already existing in the church were to be attached. Rotherham recognised that a large body of individual priests, whose duties for the day were finished with their daily mass, would be open to temptation if they were allowed to choose their own lodgings as they liked; and Thomas Kent, whose executors in 1481 founded a ‘perpetual commonalty’ of the seven chantry priests of St James Garlickhithe in the city of London, expressed his opinion that these chaplains ‘conversed among laymen and wandered about, rather than dwelt among clerks, as was decent.’ Not infrequently, a benefactor who wished to found a chantry of more than one chaplain, acquired the advowson of the church in which it was to be founded, and secured its appropriation to his chaplains, who held it in perpetuity, and were incorporated as a college. This was the case with the college of Sibthorpe. In 1333 Sir John Heslerton, patron of the church of Lowthorpe in east Yorkshire, founded a college of six priests in the church, whose duties were set forth in detail by archbishop Melton in his ordinance for the new college, which included the appropriation of the church to it. Sir John represented to the archbishop that the fruits of the living would serve for the maintenance of more than one parson, but that there were few ministers there. ‘Many persons there,’ he said, ‘who are attached to the worship of the Holy Trinity and St Mary, and are desirous of daily service in their honour and for the departed, grow lukewarm because of the frequent absence of anyone to celebrate in the church, when their minister is engaged in the visitation of the sick, or in discharge of the other duties of his office.’ Six chantries were founded, with a priest to each, known as the chantries of the Trinity, St Mary, the archbishop, the chapter, the founder, and the patron. The head of the college was known as the rector. He and the six chaplains had a common habitation in the rectory. Daily they were to assemble in the church, with the three clerks attached to the college, one of whom at least was to be a deacon, and chant the canonical services. The chaplains were obliged to wear a common dress of black or nearly dark cloth with black surcoats.