The _Chantry Priest_.--Next in order of importance among the priests of a mediæval parish come the clergymen serving any chantry attached to the church. These chantry chapels were, as is well known, very numerous in pre-Reformation days, particularly in towns; but it has hitherto not been sufficiently recognised that the priests serving them in any way helped in parochial work. This is simply because the purpose, for which those adjuncts to parish churches existed, has not been understood. We have been taught to believe that a “chantry” only meant a place (chapel or other locality) where Masses were offered for the repose of the soul of the donor, and other specified benefactors. No doubt there were such chantries existing, but to imagine that they were even the rule is wholly to mistake the purpose of such foundations. Speaking broadly, the chantry priest was an assistant priest of the parish, or, as we should nowadays say, curate of the parish, who was supported by the foundation fund of the benefactors for that purpose, and indeed not unfrequently even by the contributions of the inhabitants. For the most part their _raison d’être_ was to look after the poor of the parish, to visit the sick, and to assist in the functions of the parish church. Moreover, connected with these chantries were very commonly what were called “obits.” These were not, as we have been asked to believe, mere money payments to the priest for some anniversary services; but they were for the most part money left quite as much for annual alms to the poor, as for the celebration of any anniversary offices. Let us take a few examples. In the city of Nottingham there were two chantries connected with the parish church of St. Mary’s, that of Our Lady, and that called Amyas Chantry. The former, we are told, was founded “to maintain the services and to be an aid to the vicar, and partly to succour the poor;” the latter for the priest to assist in “God’s service,” and to pray for William Amyas, the founder. When the commissioners in the first year of Edward VI. came to inquire into the possessions of these chantries, they were asked by the people of the place to note that in this parish there were “1400 houseling people, and that the vicar there had no other priest to help but the above two chantry priests.” It is not necessary to say that these foundations were not spared on this account; for within two years the property, upon which these two priests were supported, had been sold to two speculators in suchlike parcels of land--John Howe and John Broxholme.