84 Hungerford Chapels in Salisbury Cathedral. 



Monasteries to endow his Colleges." Henry's three courses were — 



1. The smaller Monasteries under £200 a year, seized a.d. 1535. 



2. The greater Monasteries, a.d. 1538. 3. Colleges, Chantries, and 

 Free Chapels, which were granted to him by Parliament, a.d. 1545. 

 "The first of these (the smaller houses) were most in number: the 

 second, richest in revenue : the third, Chantries, &c, in one respect 

 better than both the former, viz., that the former being spent and 

 consumed, these alone were left to supply his appetite. 



" The stipends of the Chantry priests varied in proportion to the 

 piety and property of the Founder, from 40 marks for 2000 masses, 

 to fourpence for one mass. They were not allowed to receive more 

 than seven marks per annum, or three marks with their board. 



" Founders of Chantries generally preferred priests not beneficed, 

 as best at leisure constantly to attend the same. But their dead 

 founders did not so engross the devotion of those priests but that, 

 by general and special obits for other men, procession-pence and 

 other perquisites, they much bettered their maintenance. 



" Some deductions were made by the will of the Founders, to 

 uses merely charitable and no whit superstitious, out of the surplus 

 of the Chantry lands, as to the relief of poor people, and main- 

 taining of scholars at the Universities. But this did not save them 

 from confiscation: for as the stork in the fable that was found 

 amongst the cranes destroying the husbandman's corn, in vain 

 pleaded his own piety to his parents, and was killed, for company- 

 sake, with those birds amongst whom he was caught : so it is more 

 than suspicious that these pious uses were utterly extinguished at 

 the suppression of Abbeys; to teach men's charities hereafter to 

 beware of too familiar a converse with superstition. Yast was the 

 wealth accruing to the Crown by the dissolution of Chantries. 

 "Many a little," saith the proverb, "make a mickle." The founda- 

 tions, though small in revenue, yet being many in number, amounted 

 up to a great bank. There was not a Cathedral or Collegiate 

 Church in England, but some Chantries were founded therein, as 

 in many parochial Churches. These may easily be recognized in 

 country Churches, as often projecting from the old building, from 

 which they differ in style, being neater and newer. 



