Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

by Edward Lewes Cutts

A grammar school was often provided for a parish under the convenient conditions of a chantry; the schoolmaster being a priest, it was no great addition to his duties to require him to add to his mass prayer for his founders; it was very natural that the boys who profited by the foundation should also be required to join in the commemoration services for their benefactor.[552]

We quote the whole scheme of the foundation at Blackburn as an example of its kind.

In 1514, fifth year of Henry VIII., Thomas, Earl of Derby, and the parishioners of Blackburn, each contributed lands, etc., to be held by certain trustees for the foundation of a chantry in the church there, in the chapel of our blessed Lady, in the south aisle there. The chantry priest was to be “an honest seculer prest, and no reguler, sufficiently lerned in gramer and playn song, y^f any such can be gotten, that shall kepe continually a fre gramer schole, and maintaine and kepe the one syde of the quire, as one man may, in his surplice, every holiday throughout the year.” And if no secular priest can be found that is able and sufficiently “lerned in gramer and plain song,” then they were to find “an able secular priest, who is expert, and can sing both pricke song and plain song, and hath a sight in descant, who shall teach a free song school in Blackburn.” In all his masses he was to pray for the good estate of the then Earl and Lady of Derby, and their ancestors, and all benefactors to the chantry, quick or dead, and for all Christian souls. And every Sunday and holiday in the year, after his mass, he was to turn him to the people, and exhort them to prayer for all the said persons, and to say “the salme De profundis, with a Paternoster and an Ave Maria, with special suffrages after, and funeral collect, as well for the quick as for the dead. And every Saturday and holiday he shall sing the masse of Our Lady to note, and every quarter day he and his scholars shall sing a solemn dirge for the souls aforesaid. And if the chantry priest shall take any money or profit to say any trental, or otherwise to pray for souls other than those specified in the present foundation, he shall give half the profit towards the reparation or ornament of the said chantry; and if he shall make default in any of his duties, he shall pay 4d. for each such default, to be bestowed on the reparation and ornamentation of the chantry.” In summer he was to say his masses at 8 a.m., and in winter at 10 a.m.[553]

So, in 1468, Richard Hammerton endowed a chantry in the chapel of Our Lady and St. Anne, in the church of Long Preston, co. York, “that the incumbent should pray for the soul of the founder, help to perform divine service in the choir in time of necessity, teach a grammar and song school to the children of the parish, make a special obit yearly for the soul of the founder, distribute at the same time six shillings to the poor in bread, and make a sermon by himself or deputy once a year.”[554]

There were four chantries in Burnley Church, and belonging to the Townley Chantry a parva aula, on the west side of the churchyard,[555] occupied as a grammar school till 1695, when another was erected in a more convenient situation.[556]

At Giggleswick, in Yorkshire, and at Tutthill, in the same county, the rood chantry priest was required to be “sufficiently seen” in plain song and grammar, and therefore, no doubt, was intended to teach them.[557]

The gild priest of the Jesus Gild, Prittlewell, Essex, celebrated daily at the altar of St. Mary, in the parish church, and had also charge of the education of the youth of the parish.

Skipton Grammar School was founded in 1548. The appointment vested in the vicar and churchwardens, for the time being. The master was to teach certain Latin authors, to attend in the choir of the parish church on all Sundays and festivals, and when service is performed by prick song, unless hindered by some reasonable excuse; to celebrate before seven in the morning on such days, and three other days in the week; to be vested in a surplice, and sing or read as shall seem meet to the vicar.[558]

In 1529 an act passed forbidding any one after Michaelmas to receive any stipend for singing masses for the dead; some of the patrons proceeded to seize upon the chantry lands and furniture. Another act on the accession of Ed. VI., put all the colleges, chantries, free chapels, and other miscellaneous “endowments for superstitious uses” into the hands of the king, and commissioners were appointed to search them out and take possession of them. Some few of the chapels which had served outlying populations continued to exist and serve their purpose, the endowments were ruthlessly confiscated, but the inhabitants purchased the building of the crown or the grantee, and subscribed among themselves to provide a scanty stipend for a curate.[559]

Many of the grammar schools which were suppressed were refounded and endowed as King Edward VI. Grammar Schools.