A chapel or part of a church endowed by wealthy people to pay a priest to sing masses for their souls after death.
From Old French 'chanterie,' from 'chanter' meaning to sing. These institutions flourished in the Middle Ages as a way for the rich to secure prayers for their souls, especially after Catholic theology emphasized purgatory.
Chantries reveal medieval economics: you could literally buy guaranteed prayers for the afterlife if you were wealthy enough! Henry VIII shut down almost all of them in the 1540s, destroying a massive medieval charity network.
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