SAINT PAUL'S CATHEDRAL DEAN AND CHAPTER: CHANTRIES AND OBITS

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0074 CLC/313/O
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: SAINT PAUL'S CATHEDRAL DEAN AND CHAPTER: CHANTRIES AND OBITS
Date(s)	: 1300-1547
Level of description	: Collection View parent record
Extent	: 61 production units.
Name of creator(s)	: St Paul's Cathedral | London

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Chantries were chapels or altars and their attendant priests, maintained by an endowment on condition that a daily mass would be said for the soul of the provider of the endowment.

Similarly, an obit was a mass held to pray for the soul of a deceased person on the anniversary of his or her death. It was usually paid for by endowments or by the family.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records of the Dean and Chapter of Saint Paul's Cathedral, London, relating to chantries and obits, including:

14th or 15th century, calendar of obits (CLC/313/O/027/MS25134).

1541-1547, account of money paid for obits (CLC/313/O/028/MS25648).

c 1547, chantry certificates, giving details of foundations, income and expenditure, and inventories of plate, vestments etc (CLC/313/O/029/MS25526)

Accounts of individual chantries (mainly concerning the collection of rents):
1332 and 1367-(?)70, 1410-18 and 1514-17, chantry of Ralph de Baldock (CLC/313/O/002/MS25137/001-006);
1315-16 and 1341-3, chantry of Henry de Guildford (CLC/313/O/007/MS25140/001-002);
1403, chantry of Alan de Hotham (CLC/313/O/014/MS25150);
1413-27, 1431-3, chantry of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (CLC/313/O/018/MS25151/001-008);
1461-2 and 1470-1, chantry of John Hiltoft (CLC/313/O/008/MS25144/001-002);
1454-78 (incomplete series), chantry of Sir John Pulteney (CLC/313/O/021/MS25158/001-007);
1477-78, chantry of Roger Walden (CLC/313/O/022/MS25160);
1363-1418 (incomplete series), chantry of Roger de Waltham (CLC/313/O/025/MS25161/001-010);
1361-69, chantry of Nicholas de Wokyndon (CLC/313/O/026/MS25163).

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Records arranged by MS number, assigned during cataloguing at the Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section. For a detailed discussion of the arrangement of the collection, see the fonds level description for Saint Paul's Cathedral, reference CLC/313.

Conditions governing access:

Available for general access.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright to this collection rests with the depositor.

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The bulk of the archives of St Paul's Cathedral were transferred to the Manuscripts Section of Guildhall Library in September 1980. They were catalogued by a member of Guildhall Library staff in around 1989. Other accessions were received from the 1960s onwards. The Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section merged with the London Metropolitan Archives in 2009.

Allied Materials

Related material:

ca. 1222-1225, calendar of obits and payments due (CLC/313/G/001/MS25512).
mid 13th century, list of chantries and their rents (CLC/313/B/001/MS25504).
1271, list of chantry priests (in CLC/313/B/001/MS25504).
14th century, calendar of chantries and rents assigned to them (CLC/313/B/001/MS25504).
14th century, calendar of obits (CLC/313/B/021/MS25509). The calendar is arranged by name and edited by W Sparrow Simpson, Camden Society, new series, vol.26 (1880), pp.61-106. Sparrow Simpson also gives a list of obits, arranged by date, pp.194-202. See also additional list of obits, arranged by date, in HH Milman, Annals (1869), pp.504-15.
14th century, calendar of chantries, obits and sums assigned to them (CLC/313/B/016/MS25502).

Further material concerning obits and chantries (including ordinances and inventories of chapels) can be found among the "London deeds" series, particularly CLC/313/L/H/001/MS25121/1917-1999, which relate to chantries at St Paul's Cathedral, and CLC/313/L/H/001/MS25121/2000-2017, which relate to chantries elsewhere. They include a list of 73 chantries and their chaplains, compiled ca. 1370 (CLC/313/L/H/001/MS25121/1954). For a calendar of all the items, see Maxwell Lyte (HMC Ninth Report), boxes A74-76. See also CLC/313/B/016/MS25502 which includes certain 14th century chantry ordinances; and relevant entries in the Chapter Act book,1411-48 (section CLC/313/D).

A number of the cathedral's chantries were united and amalgamated in 1391 by Robert Braybrooke, Bishop of London (CLC/313/L/H/001/MS25121/1954). For an edition of this charter and of a confirmation charter of Richard II of the same year (CLC/313/A/001/MS25241/053), see W Sparrow Simpson, Registrum, pp.142-8; and Rosalind Hill, "A Chaunterie for Soules": London Chantries in the reign of Richard II" in FRH Du Boulay and CM Barron eds, The Reign of Richard II, Essays in Honour of May McKisack (1971), pp.242-55. See also W Sparrow Simpson, "On a Newly Discovered Manuscript Containing the Statutes Compiled by Dean Colet for the Government of the Chantry Priests and Other Clergy in St Paul's Cathedral" in Archaeologia, vol.52 (1890), pp.145-74.

Publication note:

Further reading: Dugdale (1818 edn), pp.18-23 and 27-29; CJ Kitching, London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate 1548 (London Record Society, vol.16, 1980), compiled from Public Record Office, E301/34; and Nicola Gear, The Chantries of St Paul's Cathedral (Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, MA dissertation, 1996). John of Gaunt's tomb and chantry are described by JB Post, "The Obsequies of John of Gaunt" in Guildhall Studies in London History, vol.5, no.1 (October 1981), pp.1-12.

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
August to October 2010.