In Chapel, Oratory or Other Suitable Places in Their Houses': Religious Routines and the Residences of Greater Medieval Households

Chapels were constructed and maintained within greater medieval houses throughout the medieval period. A wide variety of terms are adopted to identify, or distinguish between, chapels, many kinds of which exhibit great architectural similarity. The most commonly employed are private chapel, domestic chapel, and household chapel, whilst a secondary tier singles out certain subcategories including castle chapels, court chapels, abbatial chapels, demesne chapels, episcopal chapels, garrison chapels, manorial chapels, lordly chapels and palace chapels. It is important, therefore, to define the present subject: it is those buildings or chambers within residences that supported the religious observances or routines of medieval households, lay and ecclesiastic, for which the present preferred nomenclature is 'household chapel'. The 'household chapel' may also be identified as a manner of ecclesiastical institution, which provided for the religious routines of medieval households. As instances of this institution, individual household chapels were constituted in accord with canon law, exhibited similar modes of establishment and regulation, possessed their own personnel and staff (notably 'household chaplains') and were physically manifested in the form of the chapel buildings and their furnishings. The purposes of this present chapter is to reconsider the construction and maintenance of chapel buildings within the greater residences of medieval England in this broad institutional context.