A dependent chapel, sometimes called a chapel-of-ease, is most commonly thought of as one that serves an outlying population. The activities that were permitted in such chapels were contingent on the bishop, the power of the parish church and the interests of the community that it served, and thus a great deal of variety prevailed. In this context, it seems appropriate to consider what a dependent chapel was, and this question will be the focus of this chapter. To understand the nature of the dependent chapel, we will look at several different types of sources. The rights and restrictions accorded to historically recorded dependent chapels will be examined before we assess the reasons that communities and individuals gave when seeking dependent status. The same papal petitions and episcopal licences will also shed light on the patrons of dependent chapels. Once this context has been established, the characteristics of dependent chapels in the five case-study areas will be analysed. This will allow us to assess whether there were features typical to dependent chapels, or whether features were particular to types of location or even to certain dioceses.

Legal definitions

Dependent chapels both complemented and supplanted the functions of parish churches. In theory, they served communities that faced particular difficulties in accessing their parish church; these might simply be distance or else physical hurdles such as flooding rivers. This concern with ensuring that pastoral care was extended to all communities stemmed from the Gregorian Reforms, although it was the post-Gregorian Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 that really dealt with the matter. The Council's statutes covered issues such as the ability of priests to speak the same language as their parishioners and annual Communion and confession at Easter. The legislation of the Ecumenical Councils did not deal directly with the status and rights of chapels, but surviving papal letters from England demonstrate the popes’ attempts to improve pastoral care in this domain as well. For example, in 1233 Pope Gregory IX suggested in a letter to Archbishop Walter Gray of York that, given the size of some parishes in the York province, chapels should be founded to serve distant communities.