The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church — John Shaqi
The Historical Growth of the English Parish ChurchThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Church architecture -- England
§ 15. The chantry and the guild chapel had so important an influence
on the plan of the parish church, and especially of the larger church,
that they deserve further consideration, in company with the anomalies
of plan which are their result. Chantries increased in number during
the fourteenth century, and, from the period of the Black Death to the
Reformation, had an ever growing importance. At Grantham, where it is
clear that the enlargement of the church was due to the increase of
chantries, three were founded in 1349, two of them at altars inside
the church. In 1392 two new chantries were founded, at the altars of
Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, and the maintenance of chantries
at the altars of St Mary and St John Baptist was increased by new
benefactions. Thus, to large churches, a large staff of priests became
attached. Although Grantham was never incorporated as a collegiate
church, the body of clergy which served it seem to have had common
services in quire together, and to have been known as the 'college.'
The chantry priests of a large church would benefit from incorporation
in the ordinary course of things, and it very often happened that
they were formed into a regular college, or that provisions were made
affecting their common life. St William's college at York was founded
for the chantry priests of the minster in 1461 by archbishop Neville
and his brother, the king-maker. In 1482-3 archbishop Rotherham founded
his college of Jesus at Rotherham, to which, as a secondary provision
of the foundation, the chantry priests already existing in the church
were to be attached. Rotherham recognised that a large body of
individual priests, whose duties for the day were finished with their
daily mass, would be open to temptation if they were allowed to choose
their own lodgings as they liked; and Thomas Kent, whose executors in
1481 founded a 'perpetual commonalty' of the seven chantry priests of
St James Garlickhithe in the city of London, expressed his opinion
that these chaplains 'conversed among laymen and wandered about,
rather than dwelt among clerks, as was decent.' Not infrequently, a
benefactor who wished to found a chantry of more than one chaplain,
acquired the advowson of the church in which it was to be founded, and
secured its appropriation to his chaplains, who held it in perpetuity,
and were incorporated as a college. This was the case with the college
of Sibthorpe. In 1333 Sir John Heslerton, patron of the church of
Lowthorpe in east Yorkshire, founded a college of six priests in the
church, whose duties were set forth in detail by archbishop Melton in
his ordinance for the new college, which included the appropriation
of the church to it. Sir John represented to the archbishop that the
fruits of the living would serve for the maintenance of more than
one parson, but that there were few ministers there. 'Many persons
there,' he said, 'who are attached to the worship of the Holy Trinity
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