york00orns

148 YORK.
holiest function should benefit those who had passed
out of this world. But "that which was a mercy, a
consolation, became a trade, an inexhaustible source
of wealth. Praying souls out of purgatory by masses
said on their behalf became an ordinary office, an
office which deserved, which could demand, which
did demand, the most prodigal remuneration.
In the thirteenth and down to the end of the
fifteenth century the foundation of a chantr}-, or the
endowment of a chantry priest, or a legacy for so
many masses to be said within a specified time, was
the commonest form in which remorse and compunction
found vent, or death-bed repentance sought
expression. The minsters of York, Ripon, and
Beverley were full of them. A college was founded
hard by the minster as an abode for the chantry
priests who sang their masses within its walls, whilst
there was scarcely a village church in which there
was not a little chantry chapel, or the end of an aisle
screened off by its parclose, for a like celebration.
Foundations of another kind were established from
time to time with an ungrudging liberality. The
ancient Church of this country never forgot the
claims of poverty and sickness. Hospitals abounded.
They provided asylums for the poor and the afflicted,
the leper and the bed-ridden, the lame and the blind.
They stood by the way-side to shelter and refresh the
weary traveller. There is an interesting record in
existence, respecting a hospital at Northallerton,
which gives a sort of picture of what were un-
'
Milman's " Latin Christianity," ix. p. 82.