Here is an instance of a chapel which is called a free chapel, but was technically a chantry, and clearly intended to serve also as a chapel-of-ease to the town in which it was situated.
In 1309, Edward Lovekyn, of Kingston-on-Thames, had leave to build a chapel there, and endow it with lands and rent. Robert Lovekyn, his brother and successor, withheld some of the income, and was compelled to restore it by threat of excommunication with bell and candle. In 1352, John Lovekyn rebuilt the chapel and increased the endowment for the sustentation of one or more additional chaplains, one to be warden (it does not appear that there ever were more than the warden and one brother), who had a manse. The rules and ordinances are given at length in the book from which we quote. They were to live together in the manse, with separate sleeping rooms, and a common table. The warden was to provide suitable provision, and give to each brother a gown of the same kind which he wore, and forty silver shillings a year for his other necessaries. The warden was also to provide a clerk to serve mass and wait upon the chaplains in their rooms; and to provide honest surplices and amyces furred with black fur to wear in chapel. The warden to be always in residence, and not to take any other cure; not to give or sell any corrody; the warden might have guests at table; if any other had a guest, he was to pay 3_d._ for his dinner and 2_d._ for any other meal.[119] Masses to be said for the founder and his family, and also to grace after dinner was to be added, "May the souls of John Edward and Robert Lovekyn, our founders, and of the Lord William, Bishop of Winchester, and all faithful deceased, rest in peace through the mercy of God." On the four principal feasts the chaplains were to attend the parish church and make their offerings like other parishioners. In consideration that John Lovekyn gave a manse to the vicarage, his chapel was to have all oblations which came to it.[120]
The calendar of the chapels, chantries, etc., at the time of the Reformation, mentions 432 chapels, of which 198 are called "free chapels."
THE PARISH PRIEST--HIS BIRTH AND EDUCATION.
The early Saxon bishops were very often men of royal and noble families. The religious houses, which were the centres of evangelization in the early missionary phase of the history, were often founded by royal and noble persons, who were not seldom themselves the first abbots and abbesses, and handed down their houses and offices as hereditary possessions. The parish churches were founded by the lords of the land, who made the advowson appendant to the manor, and very usually brought up a younger son to be the spiritual rector of the family estate. The natural result of all this would be that a large proportion of the Saxon clergy would be men of good family; not by any means exclusively, for we have seen that even slaves[121] were sometimes admitted to Holy Orders, and we have read[122] a kindly warning to priests of noble birth not to despise their brethren of humbler origin; and the law assigned to every priest--_qua_ priest--the rank of thane (p. 77).