Chapter 13

SeeFifth Report of the Criminal Law Commissioners, pp. 34-9.

CHAMPION(Fr.champion, Late Lat.campiofromcampus, a field or open space,i.e.one “who takes the field” or fights; cf. Ger.Kampf, battle, andKämpfer, fighter), in the judicial combats of the middle ages the substitute for a party to the suit disabled from bearing arms or specially exempt from the duty to do so (seeWager). Hence the word has come to be applied to any one who “champions,” or contends on behalf of, any person or cause. In the laws of the Lombards (lib. ii. tit. 56 §§ 38, 39), those who by reason of youth, age or infirmity could not bear arms were allowed to nominate champions, and the same provision was made in the case of women (lib. i. tit. 3 § 6, tit. 16, §2). This was practically the rule laid down in all subsequent legislation on the subject. Thus theAssize of Jerusalem(cap. 39) says: “These are the people who may defend themselves through champions; a woman, a sick man, a man who has passed the age of sixty, &c.” The clergy, too, whether as individuals or corporations, were represented by champions; in the case of bishops and abbots this function was part of the duties of theadvocatus(seeAdvocate). Du Cange gives instances of mercenary champions (campiones conductitii), who were regarded as “infamous persons” and sometimes, in case of defeat, were condemned to lose hand or foot. Sometimes championships were “serjeanties,”i.e.rendered service to lords, churches or cities in consideration of the grant of certain fiefs, or for annual money payments, the champion doing homage to the person or corporation represented by him (campiones homagii).

The office of “king’s champion” (campio regis) is peculiar to England. The function of the king’s champion, when the ceremonial of the coronation was carried out in its completeness, was to ride, clad in complete armour, on his right the high constable, on his left the earl marshal, into Westminster Hall during the coronation banquet, and challenge to single combat any who should dispute the king’s right to reign. The challenge was thrice repeated by the herald, at the entrance to the hall, in the centre, and at the foot of the dais. On picking up his gauntlet for the third time the champion was pledged by the king in a gilt-covered cup, which was then presented to him as his fee by the king. If he had had occasion to fight, and was victorious, his fee would have been the armour he wore and the horse he rode, the second best in the royal stables; but no such occasion has ever arisen. This picturesque ceremonial was last performed at the coronation of George IV. The office of king’s champion is of great antiquity, and its origins are involved in great obscurity. It is said to have been held under William the Conqueror by Robert or Roger Marmion, whose ancestors had been hereditary champions in Normandy. The first authentic record, however is a charter of Henry I., signed by Robert Marmion (Robertus de Bajucis campio regis). Of the actual exercise of the office the earliest record dates from the coronation of Richard II. On this occasion the champion, Sir John Dymoke, appeared at the door of the Abbey immediately after the coronation mass, but was peremptorily told to go away and return later; moreover, in his bill presented to the court of claims, he stated that the champion was to ride in the procession before the service, and make his challenge to all the world. This seems to show that the ceremony, as might be expected, was originally performedbeforethe king’s coronation, when it would have had some significance. The office of king’s champion is hereditary, and is now held by the family of Dymoke (q.v.).

See Du Cange,Glossarium,s.v.“Campio”; L.G. Wickham Legg,English Coronation Records(Westminster, 1901); J.H.T. Perkins,The Coronation Book(London, 1902).

CHAMPIONNET, JEAN ÉTIENNE(1762-1800), French general, enlisted in the army at an early age and served in the great siege of Gibraltar. When the Revolution broke out he took a prominent part in the movement, and was elected by the men of a battalion to command them. In May 1793 he was charged with the suppression of the disturbances in the Jura, which he quelled without bloodshed. Under Pichegru he took part in the Rhine campaign of that year as a brigade commander, and at Weissenburg and in the Palatinate won the warm commendation of Lazare Hoche. At Fleurus his stubborn fightingin the centre of the field contributed greatly to Jourdan’s victory. In the subsequent campaigns he commanded the left wing of the French armies on the Rhine between Neuwied and Düsseldorf, and took a great part in all the successful and unsuccessful expeditions to the Lahn and the Main. In 1798 Championnet was named commander-in-chief of the “army of Rome” which was protecting the infant Roman republic against the Neapolitan court and the British fleet. Nominally 32,000 strong, the army scarcely numbered 8000 effectives, with a bare fifteen cartridges per man. The Austrian general Mack had a tenfold superiority in numbers, but Championnet so well held his own that he ended by capturing Naples itself and there setting up the Parthenopean Republic. But his intense earnestness and intolerance of opposition soon embroiled him with the civilians, and the general was recalled in disgrace. The following year, however, saw him again in the field as commander-in-chief of the “army of the Alps.” This, too, was at first a mere paper force, but after three months’ hard work it was able to take the field. The campaign which followed was uniformly unsuccessful, and, worn out by the unequal struggle, Championnet died at Antibes on the 9th of January 1800. In 1848 a statue was erected in his honour at Valence.

See A.R.C. de St Albin,Championnet, ou les Campagnes de Hollande, de Rome et de Naples(Paris, 1860).

CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL DE(1567-1635), French explorer, colonial pioneer and first governor of French Canada, was born at Brouage, a small French port on the Bay of Biscay, in 1567. His father was a sea captain, and the boy was early skilled in seamanship and navigation. He entered the army of Henry IV., and served in Brittany under Jean d’Aumont, François de St Luc and Charles de Brissac. When the army of the League was disbanded he accompanied his uncle, who had charge of the ships in which the Spanish allies were conveyed home, and on reaching Cadiz secured (1599) the command of one of the vessels about to make an expedition to the West Indies. He was gone over two years, visiting all the principal ports and pushing inland from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. The MS. account of his adventures,Bref Discours des Choses plus remarquables que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a recognues aux Indes Occidentales, is in the library at Dieppe. It was not published in French until 1870, although an English translation was printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1859. It contains a suggestion of a Panama Canal, “by which the voyage to the South Sea would be shortened by more than 1500 leagues.” In 1603 Champlain made his first voyage to Canada, being sent out by Aymar de Clermont, seigneur de Chastes, on whom the king had bestowed a patent. Champlain at once established friendly relations with the Indians and explored the St Lawrence to the rapids above Montreal. On his return he published an interesting and historically valuable little book,Des sauvages, ou voyage de Samuel Champlain de Brouage fait en la France Nouvelle. During his absence de Chastes had died, and his privileges and fur trade monopolies were conferred upon Pierre de Guast, sieur de Monts (1560-1611). With him, in 1604, Champlain was engaged in exploring the coast as far south as Cape Cod, in seeking a site for a new settlement, and in making surveys and charts. They first settled on an island near the mouth of the St Croix river, and then at Port Royal—now Annapolis, N.S.

Meanwhile the Basques and Bretons, asserting that they were being ruined by de Monts’ privileges, got his patent revoked, and Champlain returned with the discouraged colonists to Europe. When, however, in modified form, the patent was re-granted to his patron Champlain induced him to abandon Acadia and establish a settlement on the St Lawrence, of the commercial advantages of which, perhaps even as a western route to China and Japan, he soon convinced him. Champlain was placed in command of one of the two vessels sent out. He was to explore and colonize, while the other vessel traded, to pay for the expedition. Champlain fixed on the site of Quebec and founded the first white settlement there in July 1608, giving it its present name. In the spring he joined a war party of Algonquins and Hurons, discovered the great lake that bears his name, and, near the present Ticonderoga, took with his arquebus an important part in the victory which his savage friends obtained over the Iroquois. The Iroquois naturally turned first to the Dutch and then to the English for allies. “Thus did new France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, and in some measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn” (Parkman). Champlain returned to France and again related to Henry IV.—who had previously learned his worth and had pensioned him—his exciting adventures. De Monts failed to secure a renewal of his patent, but resolved to proceed without it. Champlain was again (1611) in Canada, fighting for and against the Indians and establishing a trading post at Mont Royal (seeMontreal). He was the third white man to descend, and the second to descend successfully, the Lachine Rapids. De Monts, now governor of Paris, was too busy to occupy himself in the waning fortunes of the colony, and left them entirely to his associate. An influential protector was needed; and Champlain prevailed upon Charles de Bourbon, comte de Soissons, to interest himself to obtain from the king the appointment of lieutenant-general in New France. The comte de Soissons died almost immediately, and was succeeded in the office by Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé, and he, like his predecessors and successors, retained Champlain as lieutenant-governor. “In Champlain alone was the life of New France. By instinct and temperament he was more impelled to the adventurous toils of exploration than to the duller task of building colonies. The profits of trade had value in his eyes only as means to these ends, and settlements were important chiefly as a base of discovery. Two great objects eclipsed all others,—to find a route to the Indies, and to bring the heathen tribes into the embraces of the Church, since, while he cared little for their bodies, his solicitude for their souls knew no bounds” (Parkman).

In 1613 Champlain again crossed the Atlantic and endeavoured to confirm Nicolas de Vignau’s alleged discovery of a short route to the ocean by the Ottawa river, a great lake at its source, and another river flowing north therefrom. That year he got as far as Allumette Island in the Ottawa, but two years later, with a “Great War Party” of Indians, he crossed Lake Nipissing and the eastern ends of Lakes Huron and Ontario, and made a fierce but unsuccessful attack on an Onondaga fortified town a few miles south of Lake Oneida. This was the end of his wanderings. He now devoted himself to the growth and strengthening of Quebec. Every year he went to France with this end in view. He was one of the hundred associates of the Company of New France, created by Richelieu to reform abuses and take over all his country’s interests in the new world. These ill-defended possessions England now prepared to seize. Three ships were sent out under letters of marque commanded by David, Lewis and Thomas Kirke, and Quebec, already on the verge of starvation, was compelled to surrender (1629). Champlain was taken to England a prisoner, but when Canada was restored to the French he returned (1633) to his post, where he died on the 25th of December 1635. He had married in 1610, Hélène Boullé, then but twelve years old. She did not leave France for Canada, however, until ten years later. After his death she became a nun.

Champlain’s complete works in 6 vols. were published under the patronage of the university of Laval in 1870. There is a careful translation ofChamplain’s Voyages, by Professor and Mrs E.G. Bourne in the “Trailmaker” series edited by Prof. J.B. McMaster. See F. Parkman,Pioneers of France in the New World(1865); J. Winsor,Cartier to Frontenac(1894); N.E. Dionne,Champlain(1905).

(N. E. D.)

CHAMPLAIN,a lake lying between the states of New York and Vermont, U.S.A., and penetrating for a few miles into Canada. It extends about 130 m. from N. to S., varies from ¼ m. to 1 m. in width for 40 m. from its S. terminus, and then widens until it reaches a maximum width of about 11 m. near Ausable Point. Its area is about 500 sq. m. Its surface is 96 ft. above the sea. In the north part it is generally from 200 to 300 ft. deep; opposite Essex, N.Y., near its middle, the depthincreases to 400 ft.; but farther south it is much less; throughout the greater part of the lake there is a depth of water of more than 100 ft. Since the lake is caused by the ponding of water in a broad irregular valley, the shore line is nearly everywhere much broken, and in the northern portion are several islands, both large and small, most of which belong to Vermont. These islands divide the lake’s northern end into two large arms which extend into Canada. From the western arm the Richelieu river flows out, carrying the water of Champlain to the St Lawrence. The waters abound in salmon, salmon-trout, sturgeon and other fish, and are navigated from end to end by large steamboats and vessels of considerable tonnage. The lake was formerly the seat of extensive traffic, especially in lumber, but navigation has greatly decreased; the tonnage entering and clearing at the lake was twice as great in the early ’70’s as it was thirty years later. The principal ports are Burlington, Vt., and Plattsburg, N.Y. Lake Champlain lies in a valley from 1 to 30 m. wide, between the Green Mountains on the east and the Adirondack Mountains on the west, and the scenery is most picturesque. On the east side is a rather gradual ascent for 20 m. or more from shore to summit, while on the west side the ascent is by a succession of hills, in some places from the water’s edge. North of Crown Point low mountains rise 1000 to 1600 ft. above the lake, and behind these are the higher peaks of the Adirondacks, reaching an elevation of more than 5000 ft. Lake George is a tributary on the south, several small streams flow in from each side; the Champlain Canal, 63 m. in length, connects the lake with the Hudson river; and through the Richelieu it has a natural outlet to the north into the St Lawrence.

Lake Champlain was named from Samuel de Champlain, who discovered it in July 1609. The valley is a natural pathway between the United States and Canada, and during the various wars which the English have waged in America it had great strategic importance. In 1731 the French built a fort at Crown Point; in 1756, another at Ticonderoga; and both were important strategic points in the French and Indian War as well as in the American War of Independence. On the 11th of October 1776, the first battle between an American and a British fleet, the battle of Valcour Island, was fought on the lake. Benedict Arnold, the American commander, with a decidedly inferior force, withstood the British under Thomas Pringle for about seven hours, and then during the night escaped through the enemy’s line. Although overtaken the next day he again, after a fight of a few hours, made a successful retreat.

At the beginning of the War of 1812 the American naval force on the lake, though very small, was superior to that of the British, but on the 3rd of June 1813 the British captured two American sloops in the narrow channel at the northern end and gained supremacy. Both sides now began to build and equip vessels for a decisive contest; by May 1814 the Americans had regained supremacy, and four months later a British land force of 11,000 men under Sir George Prevost (1767-1816) and a naval force of 16 vessels of about 2402 tons with 937 men and 92 guns under Captain George Downie (d. 1814) confronted an American land force of 1500 men under Brigadier-General Alexander Macomb (1782-1841), strongly entrenched at Plattsburg, and an American naval force (anchored in Plattsburg Bay) of 14 vessels of about 2244 tons with 882 men and 86 guns under Commodore Thomas Macdonough (1783-1825). In the open lake the British naval force should have been the superior, but at anchor in the bay the Americans had a decided advantage. Expecting the British land force to drive the American fleet from its anchorage, Captain Downie, on the 11th of September 1814, began the battle of Lake Champlain. It had continued only fifteen minutes when he was killed; the land force failed to co-operate, and after a severe fight at close range for 2½ hours, during which the British lost about 300 men, the Americans 200 and the vessels of both sides were greatly shattered, the British retreated both by land and by water, abandoning their plan of invading New York.

See C.E. Peet, “Glacial and Post-Glacial History of the Hudson and Champlain Valleys,” in vol. xii. of theJournal of Geology(Chicago, 1904); P.S. Palmer,History of Lake Champlain(Albany. 1866); and Capt. A.T. Mahan,Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812(2 vols., Boston, 1905).

CHAMPMESLÉ, MARIE(1642-1698), French actress, was born in Rouen of a good family. Her father’s name was Desmares. She made her first appearance on the stage at Rouen with Charles Chevillet (1645-1701), who called himself sieur de Champmeslé, and they were married in 1666. By 1669 they were playing in Paris at the Théatre du Marais, her first appearance there being as Venus in Boyer’sFête de Venus. The next year, as Hermione in Racine’sAndromaque, she had a great success at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Her intimacy with Racine dates from then. Some of his finest tragedies were written for her, but her repertoire was not confined to them, and many an indifferent play—like Thomas Corneille’sArianeandComte d’Essex—owed its success to “her natural manner of acting, and her pathetic rendering of the hapless heroine.”Phèdrewas the climax of her triumphs, and when she and her husband deserted the Hôtel de Bourgogne (see BÉJARTad fin.), it was selected to open the Comédie Française on the 26th of August 1680. Here, with Mme Guérin as the leading comedy actress, she played the great tragic love parts for more than thirty years, dying on the 15th of May 1698. La Fontaine dedicated to her his novelBelphégor, and Boileau immortalized her in verse. Her husband distinguished himself both as actor and playwright, and hisParisien(1682) gave Mme Guérin one of her greatest successes.

Her brother, the actorNicolas Desmares(c. 1650-1714), began as a member of a subsidized company at Copenhagen, but by her influence he came to Paris and was received in 1685sans début—the first time such an honour had been accorded—at the Comédie Française, where he became famous for peasant parts. His daughter, to whom Christian V. and his queen stood sponsors,Christine Antoinette Charlotte Desmares(1682-1753), was a fine actress in both tragedy and soubrette parts. She made her début at the Comédie Française in 1699, in La Grange Chancel’sOreste et Pylade, and was at once received associétaire. She retired in 1721.

CHAMPOLLION, JEAN FRANÇOIS(1790-1832), French Egyptologist, calledLe Jeuneto distinguish him from Champollion-Figeac (q.v.), his elder brother, was born at Figeac, in the department of Lot, on the 23rd of December 1790. He was educated by his brother, and was then appointed government pupil at the Lyceum, which had recently been founded. His first work (1804) was an attempt to show by means of their names that the giants of the Bible and of Greek mythology were personifications of natural phenomena. At the age of sixteen (1807) he read before the academy of Grenoble a paper in which he maintained that the Coptic was the ancient language of Egypt. He soon after removed to Paris, where he enjoyed the friendship of Langlès, De Sacy and Millin. In 1809 he was made professor of history in the Lyceum of Grenoble, and there published his earlier works. Champollion’s first decipherment of hieroglyphics dates from 1821. In 1824 he was sent by Charles X. to visit the collections of Egyptian antiquities in the museums of Turin, Leghorn, Rome and Naples; and on his return he was appointed director of the Egyptian museum at the Louvre. In 1828 he was commissioned to undertake the conduct of a scientific expedition to Egypt in company with Rosellini, who had received a similar appointment from Leopold II., grand duke of Tuscany. He remained there about a year. In March 1831 he received the chair of Egyptian antiquities, which had been created specially for him, in the Collège de France. He was engaged with Rosellini in publishing the results of Egyptian researches at the expense of the Tuscan and French governments, when he was seized with a paralytic disorder, and died at Paris in 1832. Champollion, whose claims were hotly disputed for many years after his death, is now universally acknowledged to have been the founder of Egyptology.

He wroteL’Égypte sous les Phraons(2 vols. 8vo, 1814);Sur l’écriture hiératique(1821);Sur l’écriture démotique;Précis du systéme hiéroglyphique, &c. (1824);Panthéon égyptien, ou collection des personnages mythologiques de l’ancienne Egypte(incomplete);Monumens de l’Égypte et de la Nubie considérés par rapport a l’histoire, la religion, &c.;Grammaire égyptienne(1836), andDictionnaire égyptienne(1841), edited by his brother;Analyse méthodique du texte démotique de Rosette;Aperçu des résultats historiques de la découverte de l’alphabet hiéroglyphique(1827);Mémoires sur les signes employés par les Égyptiens dans leurs trois systèmes graphiques à la notation des principales divisions du temps;Lettres ecrites d’Égypte et de Nubie(1833); and also seveial letters on Egyptian subjects, addressed at different periods to the duc de Blacas and others.See H. Hartleben,Champollion, sein Leben und sein Werk(2 vols., 1906); alsoEgypt:Language and Writing(ad init.).

See H. Hartleben,Champollion, sein Leben und sein Werk(2 vols., 1906); alsoEgypt:Language and Writing(ad init.).

CHAMPOLLION-FIGEAC, JACQUES JOSEPH(1778-1867), French archaeologist, elder brother of Jean François Champollion, was born at Figeac in the department of Lot, on the 5th of October 1778. He became professor of Greek and librarian at Grenoble, but was compelled to retire in 1816 on account of the part he had taken during the Hundred Days. He afterwards became keeper of manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and professor of palaeography at the École des Chartes. In 1849 he became librarian of the palace of Fontainebleau. He edited several of his brother’s works, and was also author of original works on philological and historical subjects, among which may be mentionedNouvelles recherches sur les patois ou idiomes vulgaires de la France(1809),Annales de Lagides(1819) andChartes latines sur papyrus du VIesiècle de l’ère chrétienne. His sonAimé(1812-1894) became his father’s assistant at the Bibliothèque Nationale, and besides a number of works on historical subjects wrote a biographical and bibliographical study of his family inLes Deux Champollion(Grenoble, 1887).

CHANCE(through the O. Fr.chéance, from the Late Lat.cadentia, things happening, fromcadere, to fall out, happen; cf. “case”), an accident or event, a phenomenon which has no apparent or discoverable cause; hence an event which has not been expected, a piece of good or bad fortune. From the popular idea that anything of which no assignable cause is known has therefore no cause, chance (Gr.τύχη) was regarded as having a substantial objective existence, being itself the source of such uncaused phenomena. For the philosophic theories relating to this subject seeAccidentalism.

“Chance,” in the theory of probability, is used in two ways. In the stricter, or mathematical usage, it is synonymous with probability;i.e.if a particular event may occur innways in an aggregate ofpevents, then the “chance” of the particular event occurring is given by the fractionn/p. In the second usage, the “chance” is regarded as the ratio of the number of ways which a particular event may occur to the number of ways in which it may not occur; mathematically expressed, this chance isn/(p-n)(seeProbability). In the English law relating to gaming and wagering a distinction is drawn between games of chance and games of skill (seeGaming and Wagering).

CHANCEL(through O. Fr. from Lat. plur.cancelli, dim. ofcancer, grating, lattice, probably connected with an Indo-European rootKar-, to bend; cf. circus, curve, &c.), in the earliest and strictest sense that part of a church near the altar occupied by the deacons and sub-deacons assisting the officiating priest, this space having originally been separated from the rest of the church bycancellior lattice work. The wordcancelliis used in classical Latin of a screen, bar or the like, set to mark off an enclosed space in a building or in an open place. It is thus used of the bar in a court of justice (Cicero,Verres, ii. 3 seq.). It is particularly used of the lattice or screen in the ancient basilica, which separated thebema, or raised tribunal, from the rest of the building. The use of the name in ecclesiastical buildings is thus natural, for the altar stood in the place occupied by thebemain the apse of the basilica. From the screen the term was early transferred to the spaceinter cancellos,i.e.thelocus altaris cancellis septus. This railed-off space is now generally known among Roman Catholics as the “sanctuary,” the word chancel being little used. In the Church of England, however, the word chancel survived the Reformation, and is applied, both in the ecclesiastical and the architectural sense, to that part of the church occupied by the principal altar or communion table and by the clergy and singers officiating at the chief services; it thus includes presbytery, chancel proper and choir (q.v.), and in this sense, in the case of cathedrals and other large churches, is often used synonymously with choir. In this more inclusive sense the early basilican churches had no chancels, which were a comparatively late development; thecancelli,e.g.of such a church as San Clemente at Rome are equivalent not to the “chancel screen” of a medieval church but to the “altar rails” that divide off the sanctuary. In churches of the type that grew to its perfection in the middle ages the chancels are clearly differentiated from the nave by structural features: by the raising of the floor level, by the presence of a “chancel arch,” and by a chancel or rood screen (seeRood). The chancel screen might be no more than a low barrier, some 4 ft. high, or a light structure of wood or wrought iron; sometimes, however, they were massive stone screens, which in certain cases were continued on either side between the piers of the choir and (on the European continent) round the east end of the sanctuary, as in the cathedrals of Paris, Bourges, Limoges, Amiens and Chartres. These screens served the purpose, in collegiate and conventual churches, of cutting off the space reserved for the services conducted for and by the members of the chapter or community. For popular services a second high altar was usually set up to the west of the screen, as formerly at Westminster Abbey. In parish churches the screen was set, partly to differentiate the space occupied by the clergy from that reserved for the laity, partly to support the representation of the crucifixion known as the Rood. In these churches, too, the chancel is very usually structurally differentiated by being narrower and, sometimes, less high than the nave.

In the Church of England, the duty of repairing the chancel falls upon the parson by custom, while the repair of the body of the church falls on the parishioners. In particular cases, as in certain London churches, the parishioners also have to repair the chancel. Where there are both a rector and a vicar the repairs are shared between them, and this is also the case where the rector is a lay impropriator. By the rubric of the English Prayer Book “the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past,”i.e.distinguished from the body of the church by some partition sufficient to separate the two without interfering with the view of the congregation. At the Reformation, and for some time after, this distinction was regarded by the dominant Puritan party as a mark of sacerdotalism, and services were commonly said in other parts of the church, the chancels being closed and disused. The rubric, however, directs that “’Morning and Evening Prayer’ shall be used in the accustomed place in the church, chapel or chancel, except it shall be otherwise determined by the Ordinary.” Chancel screens, with or without gates, are lawful, but chancellors of dioceses have refused to grant a faculty to erect gates, as unnecessary or inexpedient.

CHANCELLOR(M. Eng. and Anglo-Fr.canceler,chanceler, Fr.chancelier, Lat.cancellarius), an official title used by most of the peoples whose civilization has arisen directly or indirectly out of the Roman empire. At different times and in different countries it has stood and stands for very various duties, and has been, and is, borne by officers of various degrees of dignity. The original chancellors were thecancelariiof Roman courts of justice, ushers who sat at thecancellior lattice work screens of a “basilica” or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the audience (seeChancel). In the later Eastern empire thecancellariiwere promoted at first to notarial duties. The barbarian kingdoms which arose on the ruin of the empire in the West copied more or less intelligently the Roman model in all their judicial and financial administration. Under the Frankish kings of the Merovingian dynasty thecancellariiwere subordinates of the great officer of state called thereferendarius, who was the predecessor of the more modern chancellor. The office became established under the formarchi-cancellarius, or chief of thecancellarii. Stubbs says that the Carolingian chancellor was the royal notary and the arch-chancellor keeper of the royal seal. His functions would naturally be discharged by a cleric in times when book learning was mainly confined to the clergy. From the reign of Louis the Pious the post was heldby a bishop. By an equally natural process he became the chief secretary of the king and of the queen, who also had her chancellor. Such an office possessed an obvious capacity for developing on the judicial as well as the administrative side. Appeals and petitions of aggrieved persons would pass through the chancellor’s hands, as well as the political correspondence of the king. Nor was the king the only man who had need of a chancellor. Great officers and corporations also had occasion to employ an agent to do secretarial, notarial and judicial work for them, and called him by the convenient name of chancellor. The history of the office in its many adaptations to public and private service is the history of its development on judicial, administrative, political, secretarial and notarial lines.

The model of the Carolingian court was followed by the medieval states of Western Europe. In England the office of chancellor dates back to the reign of Edward the Confessor, the first English king to use the Norman practiceThe chancellor in England.of sealing instead of signing documents; and from the Norman Conquest onwards the succession of chancellors is continuous. The chancellor was originally, and long continued to be, an ecclesiastic, who combined the functions of the most dignified of the royal chaplains, the king’s secretary in secular matters, and keeper of the royal seal. From the first, then, though at the outset overshadowed by that of the justiciar, the office of chancellor was one of great influence and importance. As chaplain the chancellor was keeper of the king’s conscience; as secretary he enjoyed the royal confidence in secular affairs; as keeper of the seal he was necessary to all formal expressions of the royal will. By him and his staff of chaplains the whole secretarial work of the royal household was conducted, the accounts were kept under the justiciar and treasurer, writs were drawn up and sealed, and the royal correspondence was carried on. He was, in fact, as Stubbs puts it, a sort of secretary of state for all departments. “This is he,” wrote John of Salisbury (d. 1180), “who cancels (cancellat) the evil laws of the realm, and makes equitable (aequa) the commands of a pious prince,” a curious anticipation of the chancellor’s later equitable jurisdiction. Under Henry II., indeed, the chancellor was already largely employed in judicial work, either in attendance on the king or in provincial visitations; though the peculiar jurisdiction of the chancery was of later growth. By this time, however, the chancellor was “great alike in Curia and Exchequer”; he wassecundus a rege,i.e.took precedence immediately after the justiciar, and nothing was done either in the Curia or the exchequer without his consent. So great was his office that William FitzStephen, the biographer of Becket, tells us that it was not purchasable (emenda non est), a statement which requires modification, since it was in fact more than once sold under Henry I., Stephen, Richard and John (Stubbs,Const. Hist.i. pp. 384-497; Gneist,Const. Hist. of England, p. 219), an evil precedent which was, however, not long followed.

The judicial duties of the chancellor grew out of the fact that all petitions addressed to the king passed through his hands. The number and variety of these became so great that in 1280, under Edward I., an ordinance was issued directing the chancellor and the justices to deal with the greater number of them; those which involved the use of the great seal being specially referred to the chancellor. The chancellor and justices were to determine which of them were “so great, and of grace, that the chancellor and others would not despatch them without the king,” and these the chancellor and other chief ministers were to carry in person to the king (Stubbs ii. 263, note, and p. 268). At this period the chancellor, though employed in equity, had ministerial functions only; but when, in the reign of Edward III., the chancellor ceased to follow the court, his tribunal acquired a more definite character, and petitions for grace and favour began to be addressed primarily to him, instead of being merely examined and passed on by him to the king; and in the twenty-second year of this reign matters which were of grace were definitely committed to the chancellor for decision. This is the starting-point of the equitable jurisdiction of the chancellor, whence developed that immense body of rules, supplementing the deficiencies or modifying the harshness of the common law, which is known as Equity (q.v.).

The position of the chancellor as speaker or prolocutor of the House of Lords dates from the time when the ministers of the royal Curia formedex officioa part of thecommune conciliumand parliament. The chancellor originallyThe chancellor in parliament.attended with the other officials, and he continued to attendex officioafter they had ceased to do so. If he chanced to be a bishop, he was summoned regularlyquabishop; otherwise he attended without summons. When not a peer the chancellor had no place in parliament except as chancellor, and the act of 31 Henry VIII. cap. 10 (1539) laid down that, if not a peer, he had “no interest to give any assent or dissent in the House.” Yet Sir Robert Bourchier (d. 1349), the first lay chancellor, had protested in 1341 against the first statute of 15 Edward III. (on trial by peers, &c.), on the ground that it had not received his assent and was contrary to the laws of the realm. From the time, however, of William, Lord Cowper (first lord high chancellor of Great Britain in 1705, created Baron Cowper in 1706), all chancellors have been made peers on their elevation to the woolsack. Sometimes the custody of the great seal has been transferred from the chancellor to a special official, the lord keeper of the great seal (seeLord Keeper); this was notably the case under Queen Elizabeth (cf. the Frenchgarde des sceaux, below). Sometimes it is put into commission, being affixed by lords commissioners of the great seal. By the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 it was enacted that none of these offices could be held by a Roman Catholic (see further underLord High Chancellor). The office of lord chancellor of Ireland, and that of chancellor of Scotland (who ceased to be appointed after the Act of Union of 1707) followed the same lines of development.

The title of chancellor, without the predicates “high” or “lord,” is also applied in the United Kingdom to a number of other officials and functionaries of varying rank and importance. Of these the most important is theChancellor of the exchequer.chancellor of the exchequer, an office which originated in the separation of the chancery from the exchequer in the reign of Henry III. (1216-1272). His duties consisted originally in the custody and employment of the seal of the exchequer, in the keeping of a counter-roll to check the roll kept by the treasurer, and in the discharge of certain judicial functions in the exchequer of account. So long as the treasury board was in active working, the chancellorship of the exchequer was an office of small importance, and even during a great part of the 19th century was not necessarily a cabinet office, unless held in conjunction with that of first lord of the treasury. At the present time the chancellor of the exchequer is minister of finance, and therefore always of cabinet rank (seeExchequer).

The chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster is the representative of the crown in the management of its lands and the control of its courts in the duchy of Lancaster, the property of which is scattered over several counties. TheseChancellor of the duchy.lands and privileges, though their inheritance has always been vested in the king and his heirs, have always been kept distinct from the hereditary revenues of the sovereign, whose palatine rights as duke of Lancaster were distinct from his rights as king. The Judicature Act of 1873 left only the chancery court of the duchy, but the chancellor can appoint and dismiss the county court judges within the limits of the duchy; he is responsible also for the land revenues of the duchy, which are the private property of the sovereign, and keeps the seal of the duchy. His appointment is by letters patent, and his salary is derived from the revenue of the duchy. As the judicial and estate work is done by subordinate officials, the office is practically a sinecure and is usually given to a minister whose assistance is necessary to a government, but who for one reason or another cannot undertake the duties of an important department. John Bright described him as the maid-of-all-work of the cabinet.

The chancellor of a diocese is the official who presides over the bishop’s court and exercises jurisdiction in his name. This use of the word is comparatively modern, and, thoughemployed in acts of parliament, is not mentioned in the commission,Ecclesiastical chancellors.having apparently been adopted on the analogy of the like title in the state. The chancellor was originally the keeper of the archbishop or bishop’s seals; but the office, as now understood, includes two other offices distinguished in the commission by the titles of vicar-general and official principal (seeEcclesiastical Jurisdiction). The chancellor of a diocese must be distinguished from the chancellor of a cathedral, whose office is the same as that of the ancientscholasticus(seeCathedral).

The chancellor of an order of knighthood discharges notarial duties and keeps the seal. The chancellor of a university is an official of medieval origin. The appointment was originally made by the popes, and the office from theAcademic, &c.first was one of great dignity and originally of great power. The chancellor was, as he remains, the head of the university; he had the general superintendence of its studies and of its discipline, could make and unmake laws, try and punish offences, appoint to professorial chairs and admit students to the various degrees (see Du Cange, s. “Cancellarii Academiarum”). In England the chancellorship of the universities is now a more or less ornamental office and is conferred on noblemen or statesmen of distinction, whose principal function is to look after the general interests of the university, especially in its relations with the government. The chancellor is represented in the university by a vice-chancellor, who performs the administrative and judicial functions of the office. In the United States the heads of certain educational establishments have the title of chancellor. In Scotland the foreman of a jury is called its chancellor. In the United States the chancellors are judges of the chancery courts of the states,e.g.Delaware and New Jersey, where these courts are still maintained as distinct from the courts of common law. In other states,e.g.New York since 1847, the title has been abolished, and there is no federal chancellor.

In diplomacy generally the chancellor of an embassy or legation is an official attached to the suite of an ambassador or minister. He performs the functions of a secretary, archivist, notary and the like, and is at the head of the chancery, or chancellery (Fr.chancellerie), of the mission. The functions of this office are the transcribing and registering of official despatches and other documents, and generally the transaction of all the minor business,e.g.marriages, passports and the like, connected with the duties of a diplomatic agent towards his nationals in a foreign country. The dignified connotation of the title chancellor has given to this office a prestige which in itself it does not deserve; and “chancery” or “chancellery” is commonly used as though it were synonymous with embassy, while diplomatic style is sometimes calledstyle de chancellerie, though as a matter of fact the chanceries have nothing to do with it.

France.—The country in which the office of chancellor followed most closely the same lines as in England is France. He had become a great officer under the Carolingians, and he grew still greater under the Capetian sovereigns. The great chancellor,summus cancellariusorarchi-cancellarius, was a dignitary who had indeed little real power. The post was commonly filled by the archbishop of Reims, or the bishop of Paris. Thecancellarius, who formed part of the royal court and administration, was officially known as thesub-cancellariusin relation to thesummus cancellarius, but asproto-cancellariusin regard to his subordinatecancellarii. He was a very great officer, an ecclesiastic who was the chief of the king’s chaplains or king’s clerks, who administered all ecclesiastical affairs; he had judicial powers, and from the 12th century had the general control of foreign affairs. The chancellor in fact became so great that the Capetian kings, who did not forget the mayor of the palace, grew afraid of him. Few of the early ecclesiastical chancellors failed to come into collision with the king, or parted with him on good terms. Philip Augustus suspended the chancellorship throughout the whole of his reign, and appointed a keeper of the seals (garde des sceaux). The office was revived under Louis VIII., but the ecclesiastical chancellorship was finally suppressed in 1227. The king of the 13th century employed only keepers of the seal. Under the reign of Philip IV. le Bel lay chancellors were first appointed. From the reign of Charles V. to that of Louis XI. the Frenchchancelierwas elected by the royal council. In the 16th century he became irremovable, a distinction more honourable than effective, for though the king could not dismiss him from office he could, and on some occasions did, deprive him of the right to exercise his functions, and entrusted them to a keeper of the seal. Thechancelierfrom the 13th century downwards was the head of the law, and performed the duties which are now entrusted to the minister of justice. His office was abolished when in 1790 the whole judicial system of France was swept away by the Revolution. The smallerchanceliersof the provincial parlements and royal courts disappeared at the same time. But when Napoleon was organizing the empire he created an arch-chancellor, an office which was imitated rather from theErz-Kanzlerof the Holy Roman Empire than from the old Frenchchancelier. At the Restoration the office of chancellor of France was restored, the chancellor being president of the House of Peers, but it was finally abolished at the revolution of 1848. The administration of the Legion of Honour is presided over by agrand chancelier, who is a grand cross of the order, and who advises the head of the state in matters concerning the affairs of the order. The title ofchanceliercontinues also to be used in France for the large class of officials who discharge notarial duties in some public offices, in embassies and consulates. They draw up diplomas and prepare all formal documents, and have charge of the registration and preservation of the archives.

Spain.—In Spain the office of chancellor,canciller, was introduced by Alphonso VII. (1126-1157), who adopted it from the court of his cousins of the Capetian dynasty of France. Thecancillerdid not in Spain go beyond being the king’s notary. The chancellor of the privy seal,canciller del sello de la puridad(literally the secret seal), was the king’s secretary, and sealed all papers other than diplomas and charters. The office was abolished in 1496, and its functions were transferred to the royal secretaries. Thecancelariowas the chancellor of a university. Thecancillersucceeded themaesescuelaorscholasticusof a church or monastery.Canciller mayor de Castillais an honorary title of the archbishops of Toledo. Thegran canciller de las Indias, high chancellor of the Indies, held the seal used for the American dominions of Spain, and presided at the council in the absence of the president. The office disappeared with the loss of Spain’s empire in America.

Italy, Germany, &c.—In central and northern Europe, and in Italy, the office had different fortunes. In southern Italy, where Naples and Sicily were feudally organized, the chancellors of the Norman kings, who followed Anglo-Norman precedents very closely, and, at least in Sicily, employed Englishmen, were such officers as were known in the West. The similarity is somewhat concealed by the fact that these sovereigns also adopted names and offices from the imperial court at Constantinople. Their chancellor was officially known as Protonotary and Logothete, and their example was followed by the German princes of the Hohenstaufen family, who acquired the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. The papal or apostolic chancery is dealt with in the article on the Curia Romana (q.v.). It may be pointed out here, however, that the close connexion of the papacy with the Holy Roman Empire is illustrated by the fact that the archbishop of Cologne, who by right of his see was the emperor’s arch-chancellor (Erz-Kanzler) for Italy, was confirmed as papal arch-chancellor by a bull of Leo IX. in 1052. The origin and duration of this connexion are, however, obscure; it appears to have ceased before 1187. The last record of a papal chancellor in the middle ages dates from 1212, from which time onward, for reasons much disputed, the head of the papal chancery bore the title vice-chancellor (Hinschius i. 439), until the office of chancellor was restored by the constitutionSapientiusof Pius X. in 1908.

The title of arch-chancellor (Erz-Kanzler) was borne by three great ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Holy Roman Empire.The archbishop of Mainz was arch-chancellor for Germany. The archbishop of Cologne held the dignity for Italy, and the archbishop of Trier for Gaul and the kingdom of Arles. The second and third of these dignities became purely formal with the decline of the Empire in the 13th century. But the arch-chancellorship of Germany remained to some extent a reality till the Empire was finally dissolved in 1806. The office continued to be attached to the archbishopric of Mainz, which was an electorate. Karl von Dalberg, the last holder of the office, and the first prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine, continued to act in show at least as chancellor of that body, and was after a fashion the predecessor of theBundes Kanzler, or chancellor of the North German Confederation. The duties imposed on the imperial chancery by the very complicated constitution of the Empire were, however, discharged by a vice-chancellor who was attached to the court of the emperor. The abbot of Fulda was chancellor to the empress.

The house of Austria in their hereditary dominions, and in those of their possessions which they treated as hereditary, even where the sovereignty was in theory elective, made a large and peculiar use of the title chancellor. The officers so called were of course distinct from the arch-chancellor and vice-chancellor of the Empire, although the imperial crown became in practice hereditary in the house of Habsburg. In the family states their administration was, to use a phrase familiar to the French, “polysynodic.” As it was when fully developed, and as it remained until the March revolution of 1848, it was conducted through boards presided over by a chancellor. There were three aulic chancellorships for the internal affairs of their dominions, “a united aulic chancellorship for all parts of the empire (i.e.of Austria, not the Holy Roman) not belonging to Hungary or Transylvania, and a separate chancellorship for each of those last-mentioned provinces” (Hartig,Genesis of the Revolution in Austria). There were also a house, a court, and a state chancellor for the business of the imperial household and foreign affairs, who were not, however, the presidents of a board. These “aulic” (i.e.court) officers were in fact secretaries of the sovereign, and administrative or political rather than judicial in character, though the boards over which they presided controlled judicial as well as administrative affairs. In the case of such statesmen as Kaunitz and Metternich, who were house, court, and state chancellors as well as “united aulic” chancellors, the combination of offices made them in practice prime ministers, or rather lieutenants-general, of the sovereign. The system was subject to modifications, and in the end it broke down under its own complications. We are not dealing here with the confusing history of the Austrian administration, and these details are only quoted to show how it happened that in Austria the title chancellor came to mean a political officer and minister. There is obviously a vast difference between such an official as Kaunitz, who as house, court, and state chancellor was minister of foreign affairs, and as “united aulic” chancellor had a general superiority over the whole machinery of government, and the lord high chancellor in England, thechancelierin France, or thecanciller mayorin Castile, though the title was the same. The development of the office in Austria must be understood in order to explain the position and functions of the imperial chancellor (Reichs Kanzler) of the modern German empire. Although the present empire is sometimes rhetorically and absurdly spoken of as a revival of the medieval Empire, it is in reality an adaptation of the Austrian empire, which was a continuation under a new name of the hereditary Habsburg monarchy. TheReichs Kanzleris the immediate successor of theBundes Kanzler, or chancellor of the North German Confederation (Bund). But theBundes Kanzler, who bore no sort of resemblance except in mere name to theErz-Kanzlerof the old Empire, was in a position not perhaps actually like that of Prince Kaunitz, but capable of becoming much the same thing. When the German empire was established in 1871 Prince Bismarck, who wasBundes Kanzlerand becameReichs Kanzler, took care that his position should be as like as possible to that of Prince Kaunitz or Prince Metternich. The constitution of the German empire is separately dealt with, but it may be pointed out here that theReichs Kanzleris the federal minister of the empire, the chief of the federal officials, and a great political officer, who directs the foreign affairs, and superintends the internal affairs, of the empire.

In these German states the title of chancellor is also given as in France to government and diplomatic officials who do notarial duties and have charge of archives. The title of chancellor has naturally been widely used in the German and Scandinavian states, and in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great. It has there as elsewhere wavered between being a political and a judicial office. Frederick the Great of Prussia created aGross Kanzlerfor judicial duties in 1746. But there was in Prussia a state chancellorship on the Austrian model. It was allowed to lapse on the death of Hardenberg in 1822. The Prussian chancellor after his time was one of the four court ministries (Hofämter) of the Prussian monarchy.

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