The Churches of Coventry

The Churches of Coventry

A Short History of the City & Its Medieval Remains

ous pestilence! the Minor Brethren are come into England!" and at Bury they were obliged to build outside a mile radius from the Abbey. The parish priests also soon found out that they were undersold in the exercise of their spiritual offices and although no doubt many badly needed awakening they were not, on that account, the more likely to welcome the intruders. Another innovation, affecting the fortunes of the parish priest, had its beginning under the rule of Bishop Stavenby though its greatest development occurred in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This was the foundation of Chantries designed primarily for the maintenance of a priest or priests to say mass daily or otherwise for the soul's health of the founder, his family and forbears. The earliest we hear of are one at Lincoln, and one at Hatherton in Coventry Archdeaconry while the Bishop himself endowed one in Lichfield Cathedral. Many were perpetual endowments (£5 per annum being the average stipend), others were temporary, acc

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