car 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 proc