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Chantry is the term for the establishment of an institutional chapel on private land or within a greater church, where a priest would celebrate Mass. The same term is also
used for the endowment itself. The word derives from the Latin cantaria, meaning 'licence to sing mass'.
Chantries were often established in the medieval period by a wealthy person, who gave funds (often rents on land) to pay for a priest to say prayers or sing masses in a
chantry chapel (or at an altar in an existing church), often for the perpetual spiritual benefit of a family member. A foundation charter usually laid down conditions for ensuring the exact and
proper use of the endowment throughout the years to come.
Many chantries were set up 13th and 14th centuries. In Hungerford there were two chantries:
- The Chantry of the Holy Trinity (1325-1548), and
- The Chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The religious upheavals in the reign of Henry VIII not only led to the final dissolution of the monasteries but also affected the chantries, the dissolution of which
followed in the reign of Edward VI. The Act for their dissolution was passed at the end of 1547 and commissioners were appointed by the Crown to survey their possessions. Early in 1548 the
commissioners had completed their survey of the two Hungerford chantries of the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary and issued a certificate of their findings (see section on each individual
chantry).
Abolition of Chantries Acts, 1547 and 1549: When Henry VIII initiated the Reformation in England, Parliament passed an Act in 1545 that chantries were, in fact, misapplied
funds and misappropriated lands. The Act stated that all chantries and their properties would belong to the King himself for as long as he should live. Along with the dispersal of the monasteries,
this was designed to help Henry relieve the monetary pressures of the war with France. However, few chantries were closed or given over to Henry, as Henry did not live far beyond the passing of the
act.
His successor, Edward VI, had a new Act issued in 1547, completely suppressing 2,374 chantries and guild chapels and launched inquiries into any possessions they might
have. Although the money was supposed to go to "charitable" ends and the "public good," most of it seems to have gone to Edward VI's advisors. However, the Act provided that
the crown had to guarantee a pension to all chantry priests so displaced.
All in all the chief value of the two chantries in Hungerford was probably to provide an additional pair of priests to assist the vicar in a parish which otherwise would
have been too large for him to manage competently alone. And this value in turn depended on the quality of the chaplains, their willingness to serve and their ability to guide their flock.
The most significant effect of the chantries, and the most significant loss that resulted from their suppression, was educational. Chantries had provided education to
their communities. Since chantry priests were not ordinaries and did not offer public mass, they could serve their communities in other ways. When Edward VI closed the chantries, the amount of
education available to the poor and the rural residents was greatly diminished. Some of the chantries, however, were converted into the grammar schools that are now called "Edwardian."
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