Forms: 4–5 chaunterie, 4–6 -tre, 5 chawnterye, 5–6 chauntery(e, 6 chauntrie, -trye, chawntory, chanterie, (? schawittry, schawnter), 6–7 chauntrey, 7 chantrie, 5–9 chauntry, 5– chantry. [ME. chaunterie, a. OF. chanterie, f. chanter to sing: see -ERY. In med.L. cantaria, cantuaria, whence CANTARIE, CANTUARIE, q.v.]
† 1. Singing or chanting (of the mass). Obs.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 63. Þe chauntre of þe chapel cheued to an ende.
† 2. Incantation, enchantment. Obs.
1460. Lybeaus Disc., 2056 (Mätz.). How that lady bryght To a warm [= worm] was dyght Thorugh kraft of chaunterye.
3. An endowment for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing daily mass for the souls of the founders or others specified by them. Also applied to the body of priests so endowed.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 512. And ran to Londone, unto Seynte Poules, To seeken him a chaunterie for soules.
14[?]. Tundale’s Vis., 2080. Men that … foundyd chyrchys and chantryse.
1509. Plumpton Corr., 206. To occupie peassiablely his poore chawntory all the profitte & commodity to the said chawntory belonging.
1545. Brinklow, Lament. (1874), 86. The greate substance which ye bestowe vpon chauntries.
1775. T. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, II. 98. Priam founds a regular chantry of priests.
1868. Milman, St. Paul’s, 145. The foundation of chantries, in which masses were to be sung for the departed, even to the day of doom.
b. A chapel, altar, or part of a church so endowed.
1418. E. E. Wills (1882), 31. To singe goddys seruice for my soule … in the Chaunterie of the Chirche of Seint Leonarde.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., IV. i. 318. I haue built two Chauntries, Where the … Priests sing still for Richards Soule.
a. 1600. Rites & Mon. Ch. Durham (1733), 56. In a Chantry made of most excellent blue Marble stood our Lady’s Altar.
1826. Scott, Woodst., i. It still contains some arches of the old chantry.
1868. J. H. Blunt. Ref. Ch. Eng., I. 31. ‘Chantries’ were added to churches, or enclosed by screens within them, for the erection of altars.
c. attrib. as in chantry-house, -door, -lands, etc.; chantry-priest, a priest attached to a chantry.
1480. Bury Wills (1850), 62. My seid chauntry priest … wiche is assigned to pray for the seid soules.
1546. Mem. Ripon (Surtees), III. 62. Unius cubiculi vocati le Chauntre house.
1549. Latimer, Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (Arb.), 68. I woulde not that ye should do wyth chauntrye priestes, as ye dyd wyth the Abbotes.
1663. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (1829), 47. Having used the service book peaceably within the chantry [printed chanry] kirk of Ross.
1732–8. Neal, Hist. Purit. (1822), I. 65. The chantry-lands were sold among the laity.
1881. Academy, 29 Oct., 322/3. The chantry-priests … had a character of their own.
