What Is: A Chantry

Royal families are drama.  Power and wealth could, and did, make enemies of fathers and sons, husbands and wives, siblings and cousins.  In some cases, only death allowed the feuding family members to remember only their blood ties and not the throne they'd won or lost.  One of the more poignant expressions of this sorrow was the chantry chapel.  Chantries were chapels endowed for the sole purpose of chanting masses for the repose of a dead person, or even collective members of a family.  The Plantagenet family arranged for quite a few chantries, usually in cathedrals or larger chapels such as Westminster Abbey or St. George's Chapel.  Some of them have their own sad tales.

Henry II warred with all his sons but the most bitter fight with was with Henry, Jr., known as the Young King.  Henry II intended that his namesake would inherit the throne of England and Normandy, two of the larger pieces in the Plantagenet inheritance.  By crowing young Henry as junior king of England as part of the larger Becket controversy in 1170, Henry II set the scene for constant strife with his eldest son.  In 1183, the Young King died while still in rebellion against his father.  Then, in 1185, another Plantagenet, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, died, also at enmity with Henry II.  As furious as he'd been with them in life, Henry II was now torn with grief.  He commissioned a beautiful chantry chapel in the Cathedral of Rouen to commemorate the Young King.  Henry II was also anxious for his own soul, commissioning prayers to be said for his soul in certain chapels throughout his realm.  Henry II gets credit for introducing the concept of the chantry, a purpose-built chapel to house prayers for a dead soul and commemorate that person, into England. Henry's son John also endowed chapels with priests to pray for his soul, even before he became King.

Other Plantagenet kings who endowed chantries included Edward III, who created one at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and Henry V, who endowed a chantry at Westminster Abbey.  John of Gaunt endowed a chantry for the repose of his soul and that of his first wife, Blanche.  Nobility and the seriously wealthy followed the royal family's example.  Becoming a priest in a chantry was a sought-after benefice, or paid clergy position.  It could provide a good living wage with light duties, since the only obligation was to pray perpetually for the souls of the person or family commemorated by the chantry.  Not surprisingly, it was one of the abuses targeted by Reformers.  Chantries were specifically abolished by statute during the reign of Henry VIII in 1545 and 1547.