Chantry Provision in Later Medieval England
Analysis of later medieval wills has shown that the chantry appeared in many forms. A perpetual chantry might consist of one or several priests, in an independent free-standing chapel (such as the surviving one at Noseley, Leicestershire) or in an aisle of a greater church. If chantries were in religious communities, they were sometimes headed by a warden or archpriest. Such chantries generally had constitutions directing the terms by which priests might be appointed and how they were to be supervised. The perpetual chantry was the most prestigious and expensive option for the wealthy burgess or aristocrat. A lesser option was the endowment of a fixed-term chantry, to fund masses by one or two priests at a side altar. Historians have found terms ranging from one to ten years to be more common than the perpetual sort.
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