In Haconby Church,
Lincolnshire, and in Chevington Church, Suffolk, are very rich chests
covered with tracery and detail in the decorated style of the fourteenth
century. In Brailes Church, Warwickshire, is an ancient chest of the
fifteenth century covered with panel-work compartments, with plain pointed
arches foliated in the heads. Panelled chests of this century are
numerous. In Shanklin Church, Isle of Wight, is a chest bearing the date
of 1519, on which no architectural ornament is displayed, but the initials
T. S. (Thomas Selkstead) are fancifully designed, and are separated by the
lock, and a coat of arms beneath.
In the south wall of each aisle, near the east end, and also in other
parts of the church, we frequently find the same kind of fenestella or
niche containing a piscina, and sometimes a credence shelf, as that before
described as being in the chancel: this is a plain indication that an
altar has been erected in this part of the church; and this end of the
aisle was generally separated from the rest of the church by a screen, the
lower part of panel, the upper part of open-work tracery, of stone or
wood, similar to that forming the division between the chancel and nave;
and the space thus enclosed was converted into or became a private chapel
or chantry; for it was anciently the custom, especially during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for lords of manors and persons of
wealth and local importance to build or annex small chapels or side
aisles to their parish churches, and these were endowed by license from
the crown with land sufficient for the maintenance, either wholly or in
part, of one or more priests, who were to celebrate private masses daily
or otherwise, as the endowment expressed, at the altar erected therein,
and dedicated to some saint, for the souls of the founder, his ancestors
and posterity, for whose remains these chantry chapels frequently served
as burial-places.
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