Once the parishes were in place in Durham city and the arguments about them were settled, from about 1200 onwards, the merchants and clergy of the city below the highest ranks devoted themselves to their parish and very soon began to found chantries. There is no evidence that any below the upper ranks of society ever looked to the monks for specific prayers for individuals, or if they did, the requests were not recorded. The monastery certainly prayed for its founders and benefactors and made provision for some to have confraternity and even, in very special cases, burial and a chantry in the cathedral, but most of those involved with these monastic endowments were not Durham city residents. Ordinary citizens seem always to have looked to their parishes for prayers after their deaths, probably from the bede (bidding prayer) rolls at the mass, where deceased benefactors would have been prayed for (we know nothing about this in Durham), and sometimes from specific provision for masses, particularly by founding chantries and other forms of special prayer for their souls. The origin and development of chantries have roused great interest, and from Durham's history much can be gathered, because for some of the chantries there is the rare phenomenon of a continuous history from foundation to dissolution. As with parishes, so with chantries: Durham's history may give some further insight into why chantries began to be founded.