Chapter XIII: Part 13

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 2-1/2 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 the _Journal 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).

CHAMPMESLE, 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 Champmesle, and they were married in 1666. By 1669 they were playing in Paris at the Theatre du Marais, her first appearance there being as Venus in Boyer's _Fete de Venus_. The next year, as Hermione in Racine's _Andromaque_, she had a great success at the Hotel 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's _Ariane_ and _Comte d'Essex_--owed its success to "her natural manner of acting, and her pathetic rendering of the hapless heroine." _Phedre_ was the climax of her triumphs, and when she and her husband deserted the Hotel de Bourgogne (see BEJART _ad fin._), it was selected to open the Comedie Francaise on the 26th of August 1680. Here, with Mme Guerin 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 novel _Belphegor_, and Boileau immortalized her in verse. Her husband distinguished himself both as actor and playwright, and his _Parisien_ (1682) gave Mme Guerin one of her greatest successes.

Her brother, the actor NICOLAS 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 1685 _sans debut_--the first time such an honour had been accorded--at the Comedie Francaise, 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 debut at the Comedie Francaise in 1699, in La Grange Chancel's _Oreste et Pylade_, and was at once received as _societaire_. She retired in 1721.

CHAMPOLLION, JEAN FRANCOIS (1790-1832), French Egyptologist, called LE JEUNE to 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 Langles, 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 College 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 wrote _L'Egypte sous les Phraons_ (2 vols. 8vo, 1814); _Sur
l'ecriture hieratique_ (1821); _Sur l'ecriture demotique_; _Precis du
systeme hieroglyphique_, &c. (1824); _Pantheon egyptien, ou collection
des personnages mythologiques de l'ancienne Egypte_ (incomplete);
_Monumens de l'Egypte et de la Nubie consideres par rapport a
l'histoire, la religion, &c._; _Grammaire egyptienne_ (1836), and
_Dictionnaire egyptienne_(1841), edited by his brother; _Analyse
methodique du texte demotique de Rosette_; _Apercu des resultats
historiques de la decouverte de l'alphabet hieroglyphique_ (1827);
_Memoires sur les signes employes par les Egyptiens dans leurs trois
systemes graphiques a la notation des principales divisions du temps_;
_Lettres ecrites d'Egypte 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); also EGYPT: _Language and Writing_ (_ad init._).

CHAMPOLLION-FIGEAC, JACQUES JOSEPH (1778-1867), French archaeologist, elder brother of Jean Francois 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 Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and professor of palaeography at the Ecole 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 mentioned _Nouvelles recherches sur les patois ou idiomes vulgaires de la France_ (1809), _Annales de Lagides_ (1819) and _Chartes latines sur papyrus du VIe siecle de l'ere chretienne_. His son AIME (1812-1894) became his father's assistant at the Bibliotheque Nationale, and besides a number of works on historical subjects wrote a biographical and bibliographical study of his family in _Les Deux Champollion_ (Grenoble, 1887).

CHANCE (through the O. Fr. _cheance_, from the Late Lat. _cadentia_, things happening, from _cadere_, 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. [Greek: tuche]) was regarded as having a substantial objective existence, being itself the source of such uncaused phenomena. For the philosophic theories relating to this subject see ACCIDENTALISM.

"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 in n ways in an aggregate of p events, then the "chance" of the particular event occurring is given by the fraction _n/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 is _n/(p-n)_ (see PROBABILITY). In the English law relating to gaming and wagering a distinction is drawn between games of chance and games of skill (see GAMING AND WAGERING).

CHANCEL (through O. Fr. from Lat. plur. _cancelli_, dim. of _cancer_, grating, lattice, probably connected with an Indo-European root _Kar_-, 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 by _cancelli_ or lattice work. The word _cancelli_ is 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 the _bema_, 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 the _bema_ in the apse of the basilica. From the screen the term was early transferred to the space _inter cancellos_, i.e. the _locus 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; the _cancelli_, 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 (see ROOD). 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 the _cancelarii_ of Roman courts of justice, ushers who sat at the _cancelli_ or lattice work screens of a "basilica" or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the audience (see CHANCEL). In the later Eastern empire the _cancellarii_ were 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 the _cancellarii_ were subordinates of the great officer of state called the _referendarius_, who was the predecessor of the more modern chancellor. The office became established under the form _archi-cancellarius_, or chief of the _cancellarii_. 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 held by 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 chancellor in England.

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 practice 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 was _secundus 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 chancellor in parliament.

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 formed _ex officio_ a part of the _commune concilium_ and parliament. The chancellor originally attended with the other officials, and he continued to attend _ex officio_ after they had ceased to do so. If he chanced to be a bishop, he was summoned regularly _qua_ bishop; 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 (see LORD KEEPER); this was notably the case under Queen Elizabeth (cf. the French _garde 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 under LORD 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.

Chancellor of the exchequer.

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 the 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 (see EXCHEQUER).

Chancellor of the duchy.

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. These 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.

Ecclesiastical chancellors.

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, though employed in acts of parliament, is not mentioned in the commission, 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 (see ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION). The chancellor of a diocese must be distinguished from the chancellor of a cathedral, whose office is the same as that of the ancient _scholasticus_ (see CATHEDRAL).

Academic, &c.

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 the 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 called _style 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 cancellarius_ or _archi-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. The _cancellarius_, who formed part of the royal court and administration, was officially known as the _sub-cancellarius_ in relation to the _summus cancellarius_, but as _proto-cancellarius_ in regard to his subordinate _cancellarii_. 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 French _chancelier_ was 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. The _chancelier_ from 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 smaller _chanceliers_ of 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 the _Erz-Kanzler_ of the Holy Roman Empire than from the old French _chancelier_. 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 a _grand 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 of _chancelier_ continues 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. The _canciller_ did 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. The _cancelario_ was the chancellor of a university. The _canciller_ succeeded the _maesescuela_ or _scholasticus_ of a church or monastery. _Canciller mayor de Castilla_ is an honorary title of the archbishops of Toledo. The _gran 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 constitution _Sapientius_ of 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 the _Bundes 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, the _chancelier_ in France, or the _canciller mayor_ in 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. The _Reichs Kanzler_ is the immediate successor of the _Bundes Kanzler_, or chancellor of the North German Confederation (_Bund_). But the _Bundes Kanzler_, who bore no sort of resemblance except in mere name to the _Erz-Kanzler_ of 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 was _Bundes Kanzler_ and became _Reichs 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 the _Reichs Kanzler_ is 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 a _Gross Kanzler_ for 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 (_Hofamter_) of the Prussian monarchy.

AUTHORITIES.--Du Cange, _Glossarium_, s.v. "Cancellarius"; W. Stubbs,
_Const. Hist. of England_ (1874-1878); Rudolph Gneist, _Hist. of the
English Constitution_ (Eng. trans., London, 1891); L.O. Pike, _Const.
Hist. of the House of Lords_ (London, 1894); Sir William R. Anson,
_The Law and Custom of the Constitution_, vol. ii. part i. (Oxford,
1907); A. Luchaire, _Manuel des institutions francaises_ (Paris,
1892); K.F. Stumpf, _Die Reichs Kanzler_ (3 vols., Innsbruck,
1865-1873); G. Sceliger, _Erzkanzler und Reichskanzleien_ (ib. 1889);
P. Hinschius, _Kirchenrecht_ (Berlin, 1869); Sir R.J. Phillimore,
_Eccles. Law_ (London, 1895); P. Pradier-Fodere, _Cours de droit
diplomatique_, ii. 542 (Paris, 1899).

CHANCELLORSVILLE, a village of Spottsylvania county, Virginia, U.S.A., situated almost midway between Washington and Richmond. It was the central point of one of the greatest battles of the Civil War, fought on the 2nd and 3rd of May 1863, between the Union Army of the Potomac under Major-General Hooker, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee. (See AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, and WILDERNESS.) General "Stonewall" Jackson was mortally wounded in this battle.

CHANCE-MEDLEY (from the A.-Fr. _chance-medlee_, a mixed chance, and not from _chaude-medlee_, a hot affray), an accident of a mixed character, an old term in English law for a form of homicide arising out of a sudden affray or quarrel. The homicide has not the characteristic of "malice prepense" which would raise the death to murder, nor the completely accidental nature which would reduce it to homicide by misadventure. It was practically identical, therefore, with manslaughter.

CHANCERY, in English law, the court of the lord chancellor of England, consolidated in 1873 along with the other superior courts in the Supreme Court of Judicature. Its origin is noticed under the head of Chancellor.

It has been customary to say that the court of chancery consists of two distinct tribunals--one a court of common law, the other a court of equity. From the former have issued all the original writs passing under the great seal, all commissions of sewers, lunacy, and the like--some of these writs being originally kept in a _hanaper_ or hamper (whence the "hanaper office"), and others in a little sack or bag (whence the "petty-bag office"). The court had likewise power to hold pleas upon _scire facias_ (q.v.) for repeal of letters patent, &c. "So little," says Blackstone, "is commonly done on the common law side of the court that I have met with no traces of any writ of error being actually brought since the fourteenth year of Queen Elizabeth."

The equitable jurisdiction of the court of chancery was founded on the supposed superiority of conscience and equity over the strict law. The appearance of equity in England is in harmony with the general course of legal history in progressive societies. What is remarkable is that, instead of being incorporated with or superseding the common law, it gave rise to a wholly independent set of tribunals. The English dislike of the civil law, and the tendency to follow precedent which has never ceased to characterize English lawyers, account for this unfortunate separation. The claims of equity in its earlier stages are well expressed in the little treatise called _Doctor and Student_, published in the reign of Henry VIII.:--"Conscience never resisteth the law nor addeth to it, but only when the law is directly in itself against the _law of God_, or _law of reason_." So also King James, speaking in the Star Chamber, says: "Where the rigour of the law in many cases will undo a subject, then the chancery tempers the law with equity, and so mixes mercy with justice, as it preserves a man from destruction." This theory of the essential opposition between law and equity, and of the natural superiority of the latter, remained long after equity had ceased to found itself on natural justice, and had become as fixed and rigid as the common law itself. The jealousy of the common lawyers came to a head in the time of Lord Ellesmere, when Coke disputed the right of the chancery to give relief against a judgment of the court of queen's bench obtained by gross fraud and imposition. James I., after consultation, decided in favour of the court of equity. The substitution of lay for clerical chancellors is regarded by G. Spence (_Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery_, 2 vols., 1846-1849) as having at first been unfortunate, inasmuch as the laymen were ignorant of the principles on which their predecessors had acted. Lord Nottingham (1621-1682) is usually credited with the first attempt to reduce the decisions of the court to order, and his work was continued by Lord Hardwicke (1690-1764). By the time of Lord Eldon equity had become fixed, and the judges, like their brethren in the common law courts, strictly followed the precedents. Henceforward chancery and common law courts have exhibited the anomaly of two co-ordinate sets of tribunals, empowered to deal with the same matters, and compelled to proceed in many cases on wholly different principles. The court of chancery could in most cases prevent a person from taking advantage of a common law right, not approved of by its own system. But if a suitor chose to go to a court of common law, he might claim such unjust rights, and it required the special intervention of the court of equity to prevent his enforcing them. In many cases also a special application had to be made to chancery for facilities which were absolutely necessary to the successful conduct of a case at common law. Another source of difficulty and annoyance was the uncertainty in many cases whether the chancery or common law courts were the proper tribunal, so that a suitor often found at the close of an expensive and protracted suit that he had mistaken his court and must go elsewhere for relief. Attempts more or less successful were made to lessen those evils by giving the powers to both sets of courts; but down to the consolidation effected by the Judicature Act, the English judicial system justified the sarcasm of Lord Westbury, that one tribunal was set up to do injustice and another to stop it.

The equitable jurisdiction of chancery was commonly divided into _exclusive_, _concurrent_ and _auxiliary_. Chancery had exclusive jurisdiction when there were no forms of action by which relief could be obtained at law, in respect of rights which ought to be enforced. Trusts were the most conspicuous example of this class. It also included the rights of married women, infants and lunatics. Chancery had concurrent jurisdiction when the common law did not give _adequate_ relief, e.g. in cases of fraud, accident, mistake, specific performance of contracts, &c. It had auxiliary jurisdiction when the administrative machinery of the law courts was unable to procure the necessary evidence.

The Judicature Act 1873 enacted (S 24) that in every civil cause or matter commenced in the High Court of Justice, law and equity should be administered by the High Court of Justice and the court of appeal respectively, according to the rules therein contained, which provide for giving effect in all cases to "equitable rights and other matters of equity." The 25th section declared the law hereafter to be administered in England on certain points, and ordained that "generally in all matters not hereinbefore particularly mentioned in which there is any conflict or variance between the rules of equity and the rules of the common law with reference to the same matter, the rules of equity shall prevail." The 34th section specifically assigned to the chancery division the following causes and matters:--The administration of the estates of deceased persons; the dissolution of partnerships, or the taking of partnership, or other accounts; the redemption or foreclosure of mortgages; the raising of portions, or other charges on land; the sale and distribution of the proceeds of property subject to any lien or charge; the execution of trusts, charitable or private; the rectification, or setting aside, or cancellation of deeds or other written instruments; the specific performance of contracts between vendors and purchasers of real estates, including contracts for leases; the partition or sale of real estates; the wardship of infants and the care of infants' estates.

The chancery division originally consisted of the lord chancellor as president and the master of the rolls, and the three vice-chancellors. The master of the rolls was also a member of the court of appeal, but Sir George Jessel, who held that office when the new system came into force, regularly sat as a judge of first instance until 1881, when, by the act of that year (sec. 2), the master of the rolls became a member of the court of appeal only, and provision was made for the appointment of a judge to supply the vacancy thus occasioned (sec. 3). Sir James Bacon (1798-1895) was the last survivor of the vice-chancellors. He retained his seat on the bench until the year 1886, when he retired after more than seventeen years' judicial service. For some reason the solicitors, when they had the choice, preferred to bring their actions in the chancery division. The practice introduced by the Judicature Act of trying actions with oral evidence instead of affidavits, and the comparative inexperience of the chancery judges and counsel in that mode of trial, tended to lengthen the time required for the disposal of the business. Demand was consequently made for more judges in the chancery division. By an act of 1877 the appointment of an additional judge in that division was authorized, and Sir Edward Fry (afterwards better known as a lord justice) was appointed. In August 1899 the crown consented to the appointment of a new judge of the High Court in the chancery division on an address from both Houses of Parliament, pursuant to the 87th section of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. The chancery division, therefore, consists of the lord chancellor and six puisne judges. The latter are styled and addressed in the same manner as was customary in the old common law courts.[1] Formerly there were only four judges of this division (being the successors of the master of the rolls and the three vice-chancellors) to whom chambers were attached. The fifth judge heard only causes with witnesses transferred to him from the overflowing of the lists of his four brethren. In each set of chambers there were three chief clerks, with a staff of assistant clerks under them. The chief clerks had no original jurisdiction, but heard applications only on behalf of the judge to whose chambers they belonged, and theoretically every suitor had the right to have his application heard by the judge himself in chambers. But the appointment of a sixth judge enabled the lord chancellor to carry out a reform recommended by a departmental committee which reported in 1885. The great difficulty in the chancery division always was to secure the continuous hearing of actions with witnesses, as nearly one-half of the judge's time was taken up with cases adjourned to him from chambers and other administrative business and non-witness actions and motions. The interruption of a witness action for two or three days, particularly in a country case, occasioned great expense, and had other inconveniences. It was a simple remedy to link the judges in pairs with one list of causes and one set of chambers assigned to each pair. This reform was effected by the alteration of a few words in certain rules of court. There are therefore, only three sets of chambers, each containing four chief clerks, or, as they are now styled, masters of the Supreme Court, and one of the linked judges, by arrangement between themselves, continuously tries the witness actions in their common list, while the other attends in chambers, and also hears the motions, petitions, adjourned summonses and non-witness cases.

Although styled masters it does not appear that the chief clerks have any larger or different jurisdiction than they had before. They are still the representatives of and responsible to the judges to whom the chambers are attached. The judge may either hear an application in chambers, or may direct any matter which he thinks of sufficient importance to be argued before him in court, or a party may move in court to discharge an order made in chambers with a view to an appeal, but this is not required if the judge certifies that the matter was sufficiently discussed before him in chambers.

Under the existing rules of court many orders can now be made on summons in chambers which used formerly to require a suit or petition in court (see Order LV. as to foreclosure, administration, payment out of money in court and generally). The judge is also enabled to decide any particular question arising in the administration of the estate of a deceased person or execution of the trusts of a settlement without directing administration of the whole estate or execution of the trusts generally by the court (Order LV. rule 10), and where an application for accounts is made by a dissatisfied beneficiary or creditor to order the accounts to be delivered out of court, and the application to stand over till it can be seen what questions (if any) arise upon the accounts requiring the intervention of the court (Order LV. 2, 10a). Delay and consequent worry and expense are thus saved to the parties, and, at the same time, a great deal of routine administration is got rid of and a larger portion of the judicial term can be devoted to hearing actions and deciding any question of importance in court. The work of the chambers staff of the judges has probably been increased; but, on the other hand, it has been lightened by the removal of the winding-up business. The chancery division has also inherited from the court of chancery a staff of registrars and taxing masters.

In the United States "chancery" is generally used as the synonym of "equity." Chancery practice is practice in cases of equity. Chancery courts are equity courts (see EQUITY). For the diplomatic sense of chancery (chancellery) see CHANCELLOR.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The comte de Franqueville comments on the misuse of the title
"Lord" in addressing judges as another anomaly which only adds to the
confusion, but perhaps unnecessarily. According to Foss (vol. viii.
p. 200) it was only in the 18th century that the judges began to be
addressed by the title of "Your Lordship." In the Year Books (he
adds) they are constantly addressed by the title of "Sir." "Sir, vous
voyez bien," &c.

CHANDA, a town and district of British India, in the Nagpur division of the Central Provinces. In 1901 the town had a population of 17,803. It is situated at the junction of the Virai and Jharpat rivers. It was the capital of the Gond kingdom of Chanda, which was established on the ruins of a Hindu state in the 11th or 12th century, and survived until 1751 (see GONDWANA). The town is still surrounded by a stone wall 5-1/2m. in circuit. It has several old temples and tombs, and the district at large is rich in remains of antiquity. There are manufactures of cotton, silk, brass-ware and leather slippers, and a considerable local trade.