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, 3s. if at the high table, 1s. 4d. 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]
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]
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]