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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture I've seen this information in churchwarden's accounts and in court cases in the court of chancery and star chamber. At one point, I was looking for cases that discussed parish records and there use. There are a number of such case in both chancery and star court. The plaintiff sometimes explains were the records had been kept before the loss.

Chapel is not my term, but the term used in some records. There is chancery case or star court case about a rood loft chapel in Dunster, Somerset. It is a big rood loft--proportedly the longest surviving wooden one, but what survives does not include a loft, and is not the screen that was in place when the chapel was founded--hence the court case. Some rood screens were stone (Yatton, Somerset, although it does not survive) so it might have been big enough for a chapel, I believe the records say there is one, but again hard to know what they mean specifically.. You might want to look at Eamon Duffy's work on rood screens--he has a couple of articles on them, one in the collection of essays "the parish in english life" edited by French, Gibbs, and Kumin. He also writes about them in "Stripping of the Altars" but I don't remember off hand how much he says about activities in them. Mostly he is interested in the images on them.

as for choirs--I can't be much help, but I do remember seeing fees for children's surplices (sp?) in CWA for London. I guess I assumed they sat in the choir during the service. but many rural parish church don't have obvious choirs.
Kit French

John Briggs wrote:
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Katherine French wrote:
  
rood lofts in england sometimes had organs, sometimes had
chapels/altars, and sometimes housed the parish chest. my guess is that
if they had chapels or altars they would have been included in the
processions.
    

"Chapels" would probably be an exaggeration, given the size of the rood
lofts - and a procession would be impossible!  A rood loft would certainly
be a safe place for a parish chest if access was difficult.  But do we have
actual records of them being stored in this location?


  
as for choirs--i think i've seen references to children/boys as
choristers, but i can't quite place where i've seen it.
    

Boy choristers are usually mentioned in the context of a collegiate church.
By the sixteenth century, a few London parish churches could afford to
employ an adult choir.  And that what's puzzling me - a choir would expect
to be paid.

John Briggs

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