was written by his nephew Henry Fylungley, informed him, that John Paston and the writer (who was also a lawyer) had communed together as touching the college, and that too great a good (i.e. sum) was asked for the licence, for they asked for every C. marks that he would amortise D. marks; and he proceeded to acquaint Sir John that Lady Abergavenny[1] had, in divers abbeys in Leicestershire, vij. or viij. priests singing for her perpetually by his brother Darcy's and his uncle Brokesby's means, for they were her executors; and they accorded for money, and gave CC. or CCC. marks, as they might accord, for a priest; and for the surety that he should sing in the same abbey for ever, they had manors of good value bounden to such persons as pleased the said Brokesby and Darcy, that the said service should be kept; and for little more than the King asked them for a licence they were through with the said abbots; and the writer held this way as sure as the other.[2] Such arrangements with religious houses to secure masses for deceased persons became probably not uncommon, in consequence of the difficulty and expense of procuring a license to put lands in mortmain for endowing a chantry. Two deeds for effectuating bargains of the kind with abbeys in 1503 and 1511 are printed in Madox's Formulare Anglicanum.[3]
But all these modes of obtaining the benefit of such prayers and masses were open only to the wealthy. The great body of the people had not individually the means of providing religious observances for the repose of their souls, and would have felt themselves in a very melancholy predicament, had not some method been devised for securing to them the consolation of having taken such precautions for their relief in purgatory. They formed at an early period, and very generally, those associations called fraternities or guilds of the religious kind above mentioned; a practice which had existed to some extent from Anglo-Saxon times. Each of the members contributed a small sum annually to provide a priest to say masses for their souls after death; and they also agreed to attend and offer at the funerals of deceased members; which was regarded as another great advantage at a time when recourse was had to all kinds of contrivances for obtaining a few pater-nosters or aves while the soul was supposed to be in a
- ↑ Her will is given in Dugd. Baronage, i.p. 240, and Testamenta Vetusta, p. 224. She was a daughter of Richard and one of the sisters and co-heirs of Thomas Earl of Arundel; her husband was William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny. She died in 1434. The writer of the letter, Henry Fylungley, was one of her legatees. The mode here mentioned of providing masses for her soul was not specially directed by the will.
- ↑ Vol. I. Letters XLI. XLII.
- ↑ See Nos. DXCVII. DXCIX.
