Patrick Comerford
During my visit to Walsingham last week, when I was invited to speak at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited at least ten churches and chapels in Walsingham, including two visits to Saint Mary and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in the small Norfolk village, the Shrine Church, where much of our worship took place during those days, and the Holy House.
The Anglican Shrine in Walsingham has other chapels and altars, including the Chantry Chapel of Saint Michael and the Holy Souls and the Barn Chapel, and the Garden Altar or ‘The Altar of the Mysteries of Light’ which creates an open-air chapel in the gardens.
The Chantry Chapel was built in 1965 in the grounds of the shrine at the top of the steps leading to the Shrine church. It is the Chantry Chapel of the Guild of All Souls and Mass is celebrated there every day. It was designed by the architect Laurence King, who also restored the Church of Saint Mary and All Saints, the Church of England parish church, after the fire in 1961.
The word chantry, from the old French chanterie, implies chanting or singing. A chantry was an endowment for the maintenance of priests to sing masses for the soul of the founder or his family. A chantry was often associated with a particular altar in a parish church, or with a chapel specially built within the church. Many of them survive in English cathedrals and parish churches, and the one I am most familiar with is the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Collegiate Church, Tamworth.
While a chantry was most frequently founded to pray for the soul of an individual or a family, others were co-operative or were formed as guilds. The chaplain of the guild regularly ‘minded’ or recalled the names of departed members, a practice referred to as ‘bidding the bedes’. Once a year, every name on the parish bede-roll would be read aloud at the parish requiem.
Chantry chapels were also associated with almshouses and schools. For instance, many wealthy pious benefactors founded grammar schools whose pupils were taught by chantry priests who would pray for the founder’s soul.
It has been argued that the need to ensure that prayers were said for the dead led to the renewal and rebuilding of many East Anglian churches in the 15th and early 16th centuries, financed by wills, legacies and bequests that provided money for the priests who said those prayers.
The Chantries Acts in 1545 and 1547 abolished the chantries and effectively closed those grammar schools. But some were subsequently re-founded and today many an English school can trace its origin back to a chantry foundation, as can some almshouses and hospitals.
At the Reformation, the chantry priests were prevented from saying the traditional Masses for the dead and the term chantry became virtually obsolete until the 19th century, when the Guild of All Souls played a role in its revival.
The Guild of All Souls was formed in 1873 by Father Arthur Tooth at Hatcham in south London to provide priests in the Church of England with support and guidance on conducting funerals. The guild has sought to fulfil two main tasks since its foundation: to maintain a continuous chain of intercession for the souls of the faithful departed as a practical witness to the doctrines of the Communion of Saints and the Resurrection of the Dead; and to provide care for the dying. The guild maintained a chapel at Saint Stephen’s, Gloucester Road, London, for many years, and the scope of its work was widened to include prayer and care for the sick, dying and bereaved.
The chantry church built by the guild in Walsingham is octagonal in shape, with echoes of the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool. The roof rising to a crown of light, with the lantern at the apex of the roof. A sculpture of Saint Michael vanquishing the devil on the outside wall of the chapel was designed by John Hayward and executed by the painter and sculptor Gordon Beningfield (1936-1998). John Hayward also designed the stained glass in the chapel, and he too designed the East Window and the font cover in Saint Mary and All Saints, the parish church at the other hand of the village.
The inside of the chantry chapel is open, with a sanctuary flanked by glass walls at the far end. The lantern above is dramatic, and another band of coloured glass creates a fiery effect below the roof line. The space is organised for a college of priests, their seats around the outside.
Mass is celebrated in the chantry chapel daily and departed guild members are remembered in prayer on the anniversary of their death. Their names are printed in the Chantry List displayed in the chapel and on the guild website. Candles are available to burn as a sign of prayer for departed loved ones.
At the weekend, the names of dead members of the guild whose anniversaries fall on a Saturday or Sunday are read and remembered in the chapel.
Bishop Robert Ladds, former Bishop of Whitby, recently retired as the chantry priest. Priests of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham and local priests continue to celebrate Mass at the Chantry Chapel.
• The Chantry Chapel is open daily from 7 am to 10 pm. Mass is celebrated every weekday, Monday to Friday, at 5 pm.
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