ABSTRACT
The academic core of the medieval English universities comprised teaching and non-teaching masters, postgraduate scholars and college fellows, and undergraduate and mature commoners. The bestowal of money for the support of scholars or the giving of money or property to a university or college were acts that were expected to bring spiritual benefits to the donors. In return for a charitable investment, benefactors could command masses and intercessory prayers for their own souls and for those of their relatives. The importance that colleges attached to these commemorative masses is shown by the fact that the attendance of the master and fellows was usually made obligatory, except for good cause. The detailed planning that went into the shaping of King's College, Cambridge, in the 1440s, a college with an extremely prominent chantry element, is a good illustration of the attention that was frequently lavished on the educational content.
