CHAPEL
575
CHAPEL
Christian worship may be called chapels, inasmuch as
t hey wen- informal churches, i. e. a chamber in a house,
or the atrium and tablinum of the house adapted for the
purpose; but the earliest oratories or chapels, as dis-
tinct fmm the buildings where the bishop and presby-
tery presided over the regular assemblies of Christians,
were probably martyrs' memorials. Thus, the Coun-
cil of Gangra (350) censures desecrators of the sepul-
ehra martyrum and of the synaxes. sacrifices, and me-
morials celebrated therein. The Fifth Council of
Carthage i WO) orders the bishops to raze all unau-
thorized altars and martyrs' monuments erected in
the open fields or at the roadside unless authenticated.
The first instance on record of a private chapel is that
of Constantine (the prototype of the chapel royal, and
ol i'h saintes chapettes of France, viz.: at Paris, Vin-
cennes, and St-Germain-en-Laye) ; the emperor had
a chapel in his palace at Constantinople, and carried
with him in his wars and progresses a facsimile of it
in the shape of a portable tent Socrates, Hist, eccl., I,
xiv). Another early example of a chapel within
another building is the small one now known as the
Sanctorum, in the still remaining fragment of
the ancient Lateran palace. It was the private
chapel of the popes and existed as early as 583. when
Pelagius II placed certain relics in it (MSS. Bibl. Vat.,
in Baronius). The private chapel also of the arch-
bishops of Ravenna, in their palace there, is still to be
seen; it was built, or at least decorated, by Arch-
bishop Peter Chrysologus about 430. Instances are
extant of the original meeting-places of Christians
being preserved under the level of the subsequent
church, the soil having risen in the course of ages.
under the lower church of San Clemente at
Rome is a chamber, at present inaccessible, that may
have have been part of the house of Clemens. Under
the existing church of St-Gervais at Rouen is a third
or early fourth-century chamber which is now a
crypt. Under the high altar of Chartres cathedral
is tie- chapel of St-Lubin, bounded on the west by a
piece of the Gallo-Roman wall of the fortress of the
Carnutenses, and here, it is believed, the first Chris-
tians of Chartres, who were allowed to erect a chapel
against the wall itself, worshipped. Other examples
occur at Nti- St-Savinien), Crlteil, Etampes (Notre-
Dame), Hexham and Ripon.
The spread of Christianity from the cities into the country must have early occasioned the erection of oratories and chapels for the use of believers living at a distance from the bishop's church. St. Chrysos- tom i Horn, xviii in Act.) exhorts nobles and rich men to build chapels in their country homes and to em- ploy priests, deacons, and other clerks to offer there,
on Sunday-, the Unbloody Sacrifice, on weekdays, to celebrate the morning and evening Offices, and to the table, and teach the children and servants on the estate. The prohibition by the Council of Laodici 150 oi the celebration of the liturgy in
private houses is considered by Thomassin to refer only to the cities where regular churches already existed. This freedom in the erection of chapels had soon to 1«' restricted. There being as yet no paro- chial system, as now understood, it became neces- sary to safeguard the jurisdiction of the city-bishop throughout the circumscription of influence and activ- ity recognized as belonging to thi cathedral or mother- church. Justinian .Novel. Iviii) made private ora- 01 simple prayer ; if such chapels
were separate from the dwelling, the bishop might per- il, ir, be held there, but clerks were not to be
ordained to the-" :i- "titles". Apparently this edict
for the Quinisext Council of Constanti-
hal clerks who in oratories within
• or baptize must submit to the
judgment of the bishop in each case (can. xxxi). The
fifty-ninth canon of the same council positively forbids
baptism in such chapels. < >rdination, since the close
of the age of persecutions, has never been given with-
out a "title" or definite sphere of work and corres-
ponding maintenance having been first secured to the
ordained. In the Council of Chalcedon were read Acts
of the Constantinopolitan Council under Flavian, mentioning priests attached to martyria or suburban churches at Constantinople, and the sixth canon for- bade the ordination of any save to some title, these martyria being in the list of those recognized. In the Wesl the same enactment was repeated by the seventh canon of the Fourth Council of Aries (524).
The royal example was soon followed by the nobles, over whose chapels the bishops were constantly as- serting and enforcing their jurisdiction and safeguard- ing the interests of the paroehia or mother-church. The Council of Agde (506) conceded to the nobles that the Mysteries might be celebrated in their oratories, except on the principal feasts, on which days they and their households must attend the parish church (cf. below, the present legislation); otherwise the offerings of the faithful on those days would have been made in the chapel, to the detriment of the mother-church and parochial clergy. Charlemagne, as head of the revived Empire of the West, followed his imperial predecessors in legislating for the Church, or rather in giving imperial sanction to needful re- forms in the Church. "It hath pleased us", he says in his Capitularies (V, clxxxii), "that neither in our palace nor elsewhere shall a chapel be set up with- out permission of the bishop in whose diocese (paro- ehia) it is"; and (V, ccxxx), "Those who have ora- tories in their houses may pray there, but may not have Masses celebrated without permission of the bishop". And Thomassin quotes, as proceeding from a Gallican council of this time, a canon to the effect that on Sundays and feasts all shall come to the church and none shall invite priests to celebrate Mass in their houses. In course of time many chapels, both those set up by nobles, and those furnished by the ecclesiastical authority, became regular parish churches. In England particularly many founda- tions, now parochial, were originally manorial chap- els, and on the other hand the parish church was often founded independently of the manor-house, as at Deerhurst, on the Severn, where exist side by side and of the same date, both the manorial chapel and the Saxon parish church. Some of these manorial chapels, while still remaining private property, with chaplains appointed and maintained by the lay pro- prietor, were given semi-parochial privileges and came to be looked upon as chapeLs-of-ease to the parish church. A notable example of a nobleman's chapel becoming a cathedral is found at Moulins-sur-Alher, where the ancient chapel of the Dukes of Bourbon now forms the choir of the cathedral, the nave having been added by Yiollet-le-Duc. Other buildings sin h as court-houses, hospitals, and of course all religious houses and t heir grange-, had e ha pels attached to them in medieval times; but. from the very first, except in the case of exempt monasteries and their dependen- cies, the appointment of priests to serve such chapels was always subject to t he control of the bishop, which remains the law oi t he Church to this day.
Kinds of Chapels. — Chapels within u largerChurch. — Under this head must be included Lady chapels, side-chapels, ante-chapels, etc., attached to, or under the roof of a larger church. ( 'hint ry chapels will be treated in a separate section. The earliest form, per- haps, of the subsidiary chapel wit hin a larger church, is to be seen in the parallel apses which in some an- cient churches Hank the great apse or main sanctuary. These originated in the East, where, however, they served as sacristies or the like. The i Iriental Rites, unlike the Roman, have always had a preliminary offertory or jirnthcsis at which the oblations are han- dled before Mass. This ceremony, at first performed at the altar itself, was in some rites (notably the
