Henley-on-Thames provides an instance of the authorities in a town of very modest size and modest means exercising its concerns for the religious life of the community. It was not uncommon in the last century or so of the Middle Ages for borough authorities to be called upon to play some supervisory role in regard to the maintenance of chantries or services for the dead. In the case of Henley, a single-parish settlement, the community and its representatives were that much more closely involved in the affairs of the parish church.

Henley's urban status was recognized by the central government by at least the 1240s, and it is in the same century that we first hear of bridge-keepers there. The town had as its executive officer the warden, who appears to have originally been the head of the Merchant Gild through which the community was organized – by the fifteenth century the burgess community and the gild were one and the same – and its aspirations were achieved; judicial administration was in the hands of the lord of the manor and law enforcement carried out by bailiffs, who were manorial officials, even though their election was a privilege that the community had won. Other than these, and with a formal town council not apparently emerging until the reign of Henry VI, local government also included two constables and the two bridge-keepers.

In 1385 a townsman obtained licence to alientate in mortmain rents from 115 properties towards the maintenance of the bridge across the Thames and a chantry in the town church. Thereafter, if not before, the bridge and the church were associated administratively. The bridge-keepers were responsible for administering the rents of such a staggering number of properties, for a small community. By the end of the fifteenth century, the "bailiffs of the church and bridge on Henley were accounting regularly for these revenues and the way they were spent on upkeep of bridge and church. At the earlier end of the century, the churchwardens were accounting for expenditures; they were also elected officials of the borough, but perhaps not on an annual basis. The work of the churchwardens called on revenues additional to those assigned the bridge-keepers, such as burgess entrance fees. In 1415 the offices of bridge-keeper and churchwarden were held by the same pair, but this appears an exception; after 1429 the offices were combined, and the office of the pontenarii is actually described in 1433 as procuratores ecclesie et pontis.

After a brief experiment in 1434, an additional set of officials was created in 1441, by ordinance, to be keepers and supervisors of all goods belonging to the church and to act as holy-water clerks; their duties involved receiving income associated with burials (including bequests to the fabric of the church) and using it for repairs, and to look after the furnishings, books, vestments, etc. of the church. In 1449 we hear of a special commission of townsmen appointed to look after renovations to the bell-tower and its bells; but this effort apparently proved too much for, in 1455, it was necessary to sell a large new-made bell in order to pay borough debts, but what remained was to be used to make smaller bells. Four years later a new commission was appointed, to collect alms for the churchworks. The work on the bell-tower went ahead and in 1462 a contract was let to build a steeple atop it; by the following year the collectors were able to turn over to the churchwardens £69.15s.2d for the work on the bell-tower, and in 1464 or 1465 the hanging of the bells was begun. In 1473 a record was entered of the five new bells and their weights and total value (over £91). The preoccupation with the bells was because their tolling was an important part of the ceremonies marking the death, and subsequent anniversaries of the death, of townspeople – reminding others to pray for the soul of the deceased.

The concept of Purgatory, posited in the twelfth century and receiving official recognition in the thirteenth, established in the Late Middle Ages a core belief that gave tremendous impetus to the saying of prayers for the souls of the deceased, and to the purchase of such prayers in one's last will and testament – for those who could afford it, by the foundation of chantries dedicated to saying a special Mass for the soul(s) of the founder(s) along with prayers for others the founder designated. Prayers could help relieve the suffering of the souls parked in Purgatory until they would be released to the Last Judgement. For the poor who could not afford to buy prayers, general prayers were said at every Mass and each November, on All Souls Day, a special Mass was dedicated to every soul in Purgatory. But prayers said for specific individuals were considered far more efficacious.

Consequently, services for remembrance of the dead – obits, or anniversaries – became an important element in church celebrations, filling in gaps between the major daily services. Whereas today most churches are quiet for the greater part of a day, in the Late Middle Ages, many had activities going on throughout the day. Only a handful of townspeople were wealthy enough to be able to found chantries. The less expensive alternative was to arrange for an anniversary each year; like a chantry, it was typically funded by endowing the church where the anniversary was to be celebrated with property or rents, or with a sum of money expected to support a finite number of anniversaries. These memorial services could sometimes be as elaborate as the original exequies, or obsequies, at the funeral. Although far less frequent than chantry services, they compensated somewhat by involving larger numbers of attendants to pray for the soul of the deceased. Another tool for remembrance was the bederoll, listing the names of deceased parishioners, read out in church. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we find bedemen, or bellmen, appearing in the roster of borough officialdom, part of their duties being to go round town announcing deaths or anniversaries; Henley's earliest record of such an appointment is in 1426, although the fact that the appointee was handed the bell of office suggests that he was not the first.