Monumens de l’Égypte et de la Nubie considérés par rapport à l’histoire, la religion, &c.; Grammaire égyptienne (1836), and Dictionnaire 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 écrites d’Égypte et de Nubie (1833); and also several 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 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 mentioned Nouvelles recherches sur les patois ou idiomes vulgaires de la France (1809), Annales de Lagides (1819) and Chartes latines sur papyrus du VIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne. His son Aimé (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 in Les Deux Champollion (Grenoble, 1887).
CHANCE (through the O. Fr. chéance, 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. 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 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
