RELIGIOUS HOUSES Colet it is stated that the chantry priests of the College of St. Peter's must obey their proctor. If this official was, as his name implies, represent- ative, a considerable development of corporate life is indicated. Of the 'other colleges,' to which Braybrook alludes, Holmes' College was the most consider- able. Adam of Bury, once mayor of London, built a chapel of the Holy Ghost near the north door of St. Paul's, and by the terms of his will a chantry was founded there for three priests. ^'^ As a site for their residence the dean and chapter assigned land, in 1386, to Roger Holmes, an exe- cutor of Adam and a canon of the cathedral. ^^^ He had contributed to the cost of erecting the chapel, and by his testamentary dispositions the number of priests who celebrated in it was in- creased to seven. These formed Holmes' College, the object of frequent bequests. Certain statutes, made by Roger with the consent of the bishop, the dean and the chapter, enacted that every member of the college must swear to be faithful to the community and to keep the secrets of its hall ; that the seven priests should choose yearly one of their number to preside over the others; and that each should subscribe a fixed sum for the maintenance of their common meals.* Holmes' College does not appear ever to have received a charter of incorporation. The triumph of the house of Lancaster was celebrated by the building of a chapel, by John of Gaunt's executors, at his tomb, and tiiat of the Duchess Blanche in St. Paul's. In 1403 a chantry ofpriests was founded in the new chapel ;'" and Bishop Braybrook granted a piece of land which had belonged to his old palace for the provision of a dwelling for the chaplains. The dean and cliapter were empowered to compel them to lodge and to partake of common meals in the house which came to be known as 'Lancaster College."'^ Within the cloister in Pardonchurchhaugh Gilbert Becket erected a chapel in which he was buried. '^^ It was rebuilt by Thomas More, clerk, who received a licence to found in it a chantry of three priests.'^* More's intentions were, however, fulfilled only by his executors. They obtained both a similiar licence in 1424, and a grant that ' the chaplains of the chantry of St. Anne and St. Thomas the Martyr ' should form a corporation and have a common seal. These chaplains were made capable of acquiring property, but only on condition that they rendered it to '" Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 254. '"«rV/. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 28. ^^Cal. of IVilh proved in Ct. of Hustings, ii, 254. MSS. of D. and C. A. Box 75, 1998. '" Cal of Pat. 1 40 1-5, p. 214. "' MSS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 74, 1941. "' Dugdale, Hist, of St. Paul's, 181. '** Cal. of Pat. l42'2-q, p. 179. the dean and chapter, who must hold it on their behalf and pay a yearly rent to each.^'^ The dean and chapter and the thirty-two chantry priests of the ' Presteshouses ' assigned to the three chaplains a dwelling in the 'Presteshouses. '■'° In the year 1427 a bequest increased their number to four.*" The chantry priests of St. Paul's seem to have been remarkable, even in the most secular period of the church's history, for neglect of their obligations.*"^ An early attempt to introduce dis- cipline among them must have taken form in an effort to enforce their attendance on the choir ; for, in 1325, Sir Henry of Bray formally pro- tested that such suit on his part had been not the fulfilment of a duty but an act of grace.*"' The chantries of the cathedral provided an out- let for priests who sought to escape the duties of other benefices. Thus Chaucer says of his good parson, that He sette not his benefice to hire And lefte his shepe accombrcd in the mire, And ran to London, unto Seint Poules, To seken him a chaunterie for soules."" But the fault lay in some degree with the slight, often diminished, endowments of many chan- tries, insufficient to provide a living for a man, while the duties attached to them were in many cases enough to occupy all a man's care.*"* In 1391, therefore. Bishop Braybrook united such a number of chantries as to reduce their whole number by thirty-two ; and ordained that henceforth no beneficed clergy might hold chantries in St. Paul's.*"' He exhorted all chaplains to fulfil the ordinances by which their places had been founded, and framed new regulations for the priests of united chantries. In virtue of these they were, before the admission, examined as to their fitness for the choir, to which an oath bound them to give suit.*"' In 1408 Bishop Clifford united four chantries into one.*"' The number of vicars tended to diminish ; lay and unfit persons were admitted among them. A regulation of the year 1290,*"° and others which occur in the compilations of Baldock and MS. of D. and C. A. Box 74, 1933. "» Ibid. A. Box 75, i960. "" Sharpe, CaL of Wills, ii, 467. '" Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson.) Bk. ii, 3, Jnn. Lond. (Rolls Ser.) 224; MS. of D. and C. A. Box 75. «969-
- " MS. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 74 ;
A. Box 73, 1908. "' Prologue, lines 509-14.
- °' Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 150.
'°° Cf. lists of chantries in fourteenth cent, and temp. Edw. V,Arch. Hi, 168 and 178.
- "' Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 150,
- •» Lend. Epis. Reg. Walden, fol. 7.
- "' Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 84.
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