By the Rev. Chr. Wordsworth. 527 



by my old friend, the late Canon William Cooke, of Chester, in his 

 account of the College or Chantry of Denston, in Suffolk, printed 

 posthumously in 1898 by Murray, as "an endowment for the per- 

 petual provision of ecclesiastics to chant masses and offer prayers- 

 for the founder and for those whom he might name." Sometimes 

 the foundation took effect while the founder and certain. of his 

 friends were still in the land of the living, suitable prayers for their 

 present welfare being specifically named, with a provision that after 

 their respective decease the obits, or anniversaries of departure, 

 should be observed, and corresponding devotions offered for them 

 and for all Christian souls, so many times a year, or so many times 

 each week. 1 In many Churches these endowments were provided 

 either by a stipend secured for a term of years, or in the ease of 

 chantries " in perpetuity " by means of a gift under royal licence 

 for granting lands in mortmain. In Churches where there wer& 

 several altars, such masses and prayers were usually said at, or 

 before, a specific altar in particular, either at the convenience of 

 the clergy, or with regard had to the dedication title of the altar 

 and the wishes of the deceased person or his friends. Sometimes,, 

 however, missce currentes, as they were called, were shifted from 

 one altar to another. (See Salisbury Ceremonies, pp. 224-8.) After 

 the beginning of the fifteenth century very few religious houses 

 were founded " (says E. L. Cutts, Diet, of the Church of England,. 

 s. v. " Chantry "), " but, instead, devotional munificence began to 

 flow in the direction of the founding of chantries " and hospitals 

 or almshouses. These were less expensive than monasteries, and, 

 as Mr. W. Page has observed when speaking of those in Yorkshire,, 

 more suitable to the rising middle classes. Wealthy founders, then, 

 provided for the enclosure of their own (or their friends') tomb, 

 witli an altar near it, in a chantry-chapel screened off in a side 

 aisle or transept, or in some space in the nave adjacent to a large 



1 Bob. Warm-well, citizen of New Sarum, by his will made 20th April, 

 1447, desired his executors to cause 3500 masses to be celebrated for his soul 

 as soon as possible after his decease, and to pay 8 marcs sterling annually 

 for ten years to a chaplain to celebrate in the Chapel of Holy Trinity in 

 the Church of St. Thomas, at Salisbury, for the souls of himself and six of 

 his friends named and all Christian souls. Tropenell Cartulary, i., 235 — 8. 



