Fortunately, however, there still survives a lengthy deed,[460] dated the day after the licences to which we have referred were granted. This deed specifies that the priests appointed to the chantry were to keep schools of grammar and of song respectively, in addition to offering prayers for the souls of the departed, and that a certain sum of money out of the proceeds of the chantry was to be used for the purpose of distribution to the poor.[461] Strangely enough, we are dependent for information as to the purposes of chantries, on the instrument which brought about their destruction. In 1545 was passed the Chantries' Act of Henry VIII. This Act began by reciting that many people had been appropriating the endowments of "Colleges, Freechapelles, Chantries, Hospitalles, Fraternities, Brotherhoods, Guilds and Stipendarie Priests," and that the expenses of the war with France and Scotland had been heavy, and then proceeded to give authority to the king to send out commissioners to investigate the nature of these endowments and afterwards to take such action as he thought fit. "Apparently, Henry had a fit of reaction after the Chantries' Act was passed. He is reported to have dissolved Parliament with a speech in which he said he was going to reform chantries, not destroy them."[462] A new Chantries' Act was passed in the first parliament of Edward VI.[463] The object of this Act was essentially different from that of its predecessor. The preamble to the Act specified that it was thought that "a great part of superstition and errors in Christian religion has been brought into the minds and estimation of men, by reason of their ignorance of the very true and perfect Salvation through Christ Jesus, and by devising and fancying vain opinions of purgatory and masses satisfactory to be done for them which be departed, the which doctrine and vain opinion by nothing more is maintained and upholden than by the abuse of trentals, chantries, and other provisions made for the continuance of the said blindness and ignorance." The Act proceeded to vest in the Crown "all Colleges, Free Chapels and Chantries"; "all Lands given for the finding of a Stipendiary Priest for ever"; "all payments made by corporations, gilds, fraternities, companies, or fellowships, of mysteries or crafts." A commission was to be issued, under the Great Seal, to investigate the origin and purpose of the various chantries, etc., to arrange for the continuance of such charitable objects as they deemed necessary, and to assign pensions to the incumbents whose office was abolished. It is to the returns that were made to these commissioners that we are mainly indebted for a knowledge of the objects and purposes for which the chantries were provided. The purposes, which are most frequently mentioned, are:-- 1. Provision of a priest to teach children freely. 2. Assistance of the parish priest. 3. Care of bridges. 4. Relief of the poor.