Museum archives: Chantry Priests
It was Henry VIII who, as we know, got rid of the monasteries. But what is less well known is that it was his ten year old son, Edward VI, who, shortly after Henry’s death, consigned chantries to history. For the people of Steyning this was the more significant event and lives on in the name of Chantry Green.Chantries were groups of people who donated land or subscribed money to employ a chantry priest. The priest’s principal role was to say or sing masses for the dead in order to ease the passage of their souls through purgatory. But, on their dissolution in 1548, this reassuring route towards heaven was lost to them. Bequests for masses to be said suddenly disappear from Steyning wills and the chapels and altars within the Church which had, before that, been dedicated to the chantries fell into disuse and disrepair.
To some extent chantries had also acted as 'friendly societies' to support any of their members who fell on hard times, and this was lost to them as well. Moreover, some of them offered an element of teaching. The threat of abandoning the chantries had prompted the King's almoner, to write to the King’s Secretary, saying 'The livings for impotent orphans, widows, [the] poor and miserable shall bee utterly intolerable, if there be not a sufficient number of Ministers [and] Priests established in Parishes. . . The Realm will come into fowl ignorance and barborousness when the Reward of Learning is gone.'
This aspect of the role of our chantries is not mentioned in Steyning wills but it is certainly a possibility that a number of Steyning people acquired their learning and ability to read and write through the chantry priests.
In Steyning there were two chantries. The earlier of the two, 'The Chantry of our Lady of Steyning', may have been in existence since David Cubbel was described as a chaplain of Steyning in about 1300 and, in 1417, the chantry was lent money to find a 'fit and honest chaplain to celebrate divine service' in 'the chapel of the Blessed Mother the Virgin'. The 'Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity', which also had its own priest and its chapel and altar in the Church, seems to have been established some seven or eight years later than that.
It is likely to have had its origins as a grouping of people with similar interests, quite possibly social or commercial or a combination of the two, onto which became grafted a spiritual role. Donations of money and land enabled them to pay for the services of the priest and, in the 1450’s, to build Brotherhood Hall. As it offered intercessions for the souls of the dead it became known as a chantry.
At the time of the dissolution of the chantries Owen Hardeway was the Chantry Priest living in 'Chaunterey Howse' and Nicholas Thomas was the Priest of the Brotherhood. The Chantry had an annual rental income of £5 8s 8d and access to a 'Greate Woode, all of oke' valued at £10, with a special allowance of 'hedgebote, ploughbote, cartebote and fyrebote' (for the repair of hedges and farm equipment and for firewood). The Brotherhood owned 29 parcels of land valued at £12 but also had ten pound’s worth of cash – gold, silver and ten ‘angels’ (a coin worth 8 shillings) – plus a chalice and five spoons. No valuables of this sort are noted for the Chantry, except for one stole donated to the Church by Owen Hardway. It is known that some chantries disposed of (or hid) valuable possessions in the run-up to the dissolution: perhaps our Chantry was one of these.
Although the purpose of the dissolution of the chantries was in part to suppress what were deemed to be unacceptable Catholic practices and in part to acquire their assets, the chantry priests were not left destitute – Owen Hardeway was allotted a pension of £6 a year and Nicholas Thomas £5.
Article by: Chris Tod - Steyning Museum.