Online Encyclopedia

CHAPTER (a shortened form of chapiter...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 855 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHAPTER (a shortened form of chapiter, a word still used in architecture for a capital; derived from O. Fr. chapitre,
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Lat. capitellum, diminutive of caput, head)
  , a
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principal division or section of a
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book, and so applied to acts of parliament, as forming " chapters " or divisions of the legislation of a session of parliament . The name " chapter " is given to the permanent
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body of the canons of a
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cathedral or collegiate church, presided over, in the
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English Church, by the clean, and in the
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Roman communion by the provost or the dean, and also to the body of the members of a religious order . This may be a " conventual " chapter of the monks of a particular monastery, " provincial " of the members of the order in a province, or " general " of the whole order . This ecclesiastical use of the word arose from the custom of
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reading a chapter of Scripture, or a head (capitulum) of the
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regula, to the assembled canons or monks . The transference from the reading to the assembly itself, and to the members constituting it, was easy, through such phrases as convenire ad capitulum . The title " chapter " is similarly used of the assembled body of knights of a military or other order . (See also
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CANON; CATHEDRAL; DEAN) . CHAPTER-HOUSE (
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Lat. capitolium, Ital. capitolo, Fr. chapitre, Ger . Kapitelhaus), the chamber in which the chapter or heads of the monastic bodies (see ABBEY and CATHEDRAL) assembled to transact business . They are of various forms; some are oblong apartments, as Canterbury, Exeter, Chester, Gloucester, &c.; some octagonal, as Salisbury, Westminster, Wells, Lincoln, York, &c . That at Lincoln has ten sides, and that at Worcester is circular; most are vaulted internally and polygonal externally, and some, as Salisbury, Wells, Lincoln, Worcester, &c., dependon a single slight vaulting shaft for the support of the massive vaulting . They are often provided with a vestibule, as at Westminster, Lincoln, Salisbury and are almost exclusively English .

End of Article: CHAPTER (a shortened form of chapiter, a word still used in architecture for a capital; derived from O. Fr. chapitre, Lat. capitellum, diminutive of caput, head)
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