Chantry Family History

English (Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire): from Old French chanterie, a term which originally meant the singing or chanting of a mass, but later came to denote the endowment of a priest to sing mass daily on behalf of the souls of the dead. The priest so endowed, and eventually the chapel where he officiated.

The surname therefore may have arisen from a metonymic occupational name for the servant of a chantry priest, or possibly for the priest himself, or alternatively from a topographic name for someone who lived by a chantry chapel.

French (northern) and Walloon: nickname for a cantor from Old French chanterie (see 1 above).