For a hundred years and more the Friars kept alive the new religion. This fell off; but their early teaching survived, and was the foundation of Lollardy. When the Religious Houses were suppressed, the people of London looked on without a protest; their work was done; the City was again waking up to a new enthusiasm. The Reformation, the many sects of the new Faith, the fanaticism of the seventeenth century, the enthusiasm of the eighteenth, the Evangelical domination, the return of High Church doctrine, the development of Ritual, all these things are but manifestations of the same spirit which caused the Revival under Henry the Fourth and the Puritanism of the Civil Wars. Many changes pass over the face of London, but deep down lies, unchanged, the ancient spirit of religion.
CHANTRY CHAPEL OF HENRY V. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
From Grangerised Edition of Brayley’s London and Middlesex in Guildhall Library.
In the Parish Church, generally a small building erected by some citizen who got a bit of the City carved out for his parish, there was little splendour. Every day mass was said in the morning, and vespers in the evening, by the Parish Priest: every morning the Chantry priests before the side altars sang mass for the souls of their founders. On All Souls’ Day the Parish Priest sang mass for the souls of all Christian men and women. There was many a poor faithful woman who could not find the money to pay for a Chantry or an obit, or an Annual, for the soul of her husband or her son—though well she knew, poor creature, how much he wanted that assistance. But she took comfort in the thought that so long as the world should last that yearly mass would be said for the benefit of all poor souls in pain.
The endowment of a Chantry generally provided for one priest, but often for two, in some cases for three, and in one, that of Adam de Bury in 1364, for seven priests. In the fourteenth century there were more than 70 chantries in St. Paul’s alone. There were also 111 obits or foundations for occasional masses—making altogether an income of £183: 18: 3-1/2.
In the reign of Richard the Second, Bishop Braybroke found that some of the chantries had fallen into decay, the endowments having been lost or wasted. He united some of the poorer ones. He also ordained that no beneficed priest should hold a chantry, and laid down regulations for the chantry priests. They were to attend the choir offices day and night; they were to take part in processions, funerals, and they were to live in Houses provided for them or in the chambers of Chantries. These priests seem to have given a great deal of trouble by the scandals which they caused. It must be remembered that they were not persons, as a rule, of scholarly habits; that their sole duty consisted in the daily mass for the soul of their Founder; and that they had the whole day to get through in idleness. They were also extremely poor, the average stipend being £5 a year, equivalent to something like £75. Archbishop Sudbury, in 1378, spoke of them in the strongest terms of reproach, summing up his enumeration of their vices by saying that their lives tended “in virorum ecclesiasticorum detestabile scandalum, et exemptum perniciosissimum laicorum.”
It is not possible, I think, to make out how far the London craftsman assisted at the Functions of the Church. At least once a year he must go to Confession. The Pope made that rule in 1215. The craftsman probably went to Confession at one of the greater festivals. Every Sunday morning he must be present at mass. That duty was then, as now, imposed on every faithful child of the Church. This law, doubtless, he did obey. There were dues to be paid: he had to pay them; there were friars who came begging: he contributed of his poverty; and he must fast in Lent and on Fridays and on certain other days—about a hundred days in all. In this point he must needs obey, because the butchers’ shops were closed, and he could buy no meat. He had to get married; to get the children baptized; to pay dues for the Vigil of the Dead. Another important function performed by the clergy was the reconciliation of enemies and the settlement of disputes by “love days.” There are many references to the love days. Piers Plowman constantly talks about them, and with bitterness, as if the Church made the office of Peacemaker a means of enriching herself. Riley quotes an ordinance forbidding people to make disturbances by getting up love days.
