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Page 7 of 8

• 1. Community life
• 2. Origins of parochial worship
• 3. Structure
• 4. Church maintenance
• 5. Fittings and church interiors
• 6. Screens and roods
• 7. Chantries
• 8. Guilds and the local community
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Chantries

As well as catering for the needs of the living, later medieval parish churches increasingly catered for those who died. The prayers of communities, and especially the prayers of communities of poor people supported by gifts of alms, were believed to help speed the soul's passage through Purgatory and on its way to Heaven.

An example of how this worked can be seen in the case of the Earl and Countess of Suffolk, who, in 1437, received a royal licence to found an almshouse for 13 poor men at their manor of Ewelme in Oxfordshire. In return for food and accommodation the poor men were to pray for the souls of the founders, their friends and relatives, the king, his relatives, and all the other faithful departed at masses celebrated daily by two chaplains.

'Chantries ... were popular as acts of pious patronage throughout the later Middle Ages.'

These masses were to take place in the new chantry chapel of St John, built against the south side of the parish church chancel. Immediately to the left of the chapel's altar, the tomb of the Countess, Alice de la Pole, was eventually placed. She had undoubtedly attended the masses said for her in this chapel whilst alive, and clearly wished to continue to receive the benefits of the prayers after her death.

Chantries, not all as elaborate as that at Ewelme, were popular as acts of pious patronage throughout the later Middle Ages. The Ewelme chantry was a perpetual, or permanent chantry with sufficient endowment to maintain it after the deaths of its founders.

However it was possible to found chantries for much shorter periods of time, and many ran for only a few years. Some, as at Ewelme, were in specially constructed chapels, others were at side altars enclosed by parclose screens.

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Published: 2005-02-02