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) 8d., a cottager with land 4d., a cottager without land 2d. 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]