Constructing a Vision of Salvation: Chantries and the Social Dimension of Religious Experience in the Medieval Parish Church

Abstract

For several years, studies of popular religion within pre-Reformation England have tended to emphasize that religious practice within the medieval parish church had become increasingly privatized and exclusive, as a result of the foundation of so-called ‘private’ chantry chapels. In many cases, these works have neglected the wider role of the chantry in shared religious experience at parish level, a deficit that has only recently been challenged by historians. This paper sets out to consider how the structural analysis of surviving above-ground evidence for former chantry chapels can uncover a wider context for chantry foundation in the medieval parish church. This paper based on recent research in the south and west of England discusses how the analysis of church space, light and, particularly, vision enables the reconstruction of aspects of chantry chapel foundation and can illustrate their wider social dimension. It examines the nature of the architectural feature known as the ‘squint’ and discusses how it can help in the analysis of former ritual topography and shed light on the level of private and communal piety. Furthermore, this paper shows how the use of archaeological approaches can illuminate aspects of medieval religious practice only hinted at in historical documents.