freechapel

plural freechapels

1. historicalA chapel founded by the king of England or built under a grant from the king, which is not subject to the jurisdiction of the local bishop or other ruling member of the clergy.

   The incumbent is called in old records Dean of the King's freechapel of St.Burian.

   1814, Daniel Lysons, Magna Britannia;: Cornwall, page 49

   2 more examples

   Radfield-Chapel, (Kent,) in the p. of Bapchild, had once a freechapel, the ruins of which are yet remaining; the lands of which were by K. Edw VI. given to John Bateman, whose successor gave it by will to John Bateman of Wormsell. The steeple of its Ch. is a sea-mark.

   1751, Stephen Whatley, England's Gazetteer

   There is piece of land called chapel-yard, late parcel of the possessions of the priory of Hickling, where a freechapel stood formerly, of which I have no further account in any evidences that I have seen.

   1806, Francis Blomefield, Charles Parkin, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk