CHAMFER

The flat slope formed by cutting away an angle in timber, or masonry. The chamfer is the first approach to a moulding, though it can hardly itself be called one. The chamfer plane , in speaking of mouldings, is used for the plane at an angle of 45°, or thereabouts, with the face of the wall, in which some of the mouldings often, and sometimes all of them, lie. The resolution of the chamfer into the square is called a stop-chamfer ; it is often of considerable elegance. CHANCEL. The upper part of the church, containing the holy table, and the stalls for the clergy. It is called the Chori in cathedrals, college chapels, and large churches: and in many of the ancient English parish churches is inferior in height and width to the nave. (See Choir .)— Jebb. ( Can cell us. ) So called a Can cell is , from the lattice-work partition betwixt the choir and the body of the church, so framed as to separate the one from the other, but not to intercept the sight. By the rubric before the Common Prayer, it is ordained that “the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past,” that is to say, distinguished from the body of the church in manner aforesaid; against which distinction Bucer (at the time of the Reformation) inveighed vehemently, as tending only to magnify the priesthood; but though the king and the parliament yielded so far as to allow the daily service to be read in the body of the church, if the ordinary thought fit, yet they would not suffer the chancel to be taken away or altered. The chancel is the freehold of the rector, and part of his glebe, and therefore he ought to repair it: but if the rectory is impropriate, then the impropriator must do it: and this he is enjoined to do, not only by the common law, but by the canons of the Church; for in the glo upon the Constitutions of Othobon it is said, that chancels must be repaired by those who are thereunto obliged; which words must refer to the common custom of England, by which rectors are obliged to repair the chancels. As to seats in the chancel, it has been made a question, whether the ordinary may place any person there? The objections against it are,—1. Because it is the freehold of the rector. 2. Because he is to repair it. But these are not sufficient reasons to divest the ordinary of that jurisdiction; for the freehold of the church is in the parson, and yet the bishop hath a power of placing persons there. Unhappy disputes have arisen concerning the situation of the Lord’s table in the chancels. The first, in the beginning of the Reformation, was, whether those of the altar fashion, which had been used in the Popish times, and on which the ma es were celebrated, should be kept up. This point was first started by Bishop Hooper, in a sermon before King Edward VI.; and, after this, altars were ordered to be taken down; and, instead of them, a table to be set up, in some convenient place of the chancel. In the first liturgy it was directed, that the priest officiating should stand before the midst of the altar. In the second, that the priest shall stand on the north side of the table. And thus the first dispute was at an end. But then there followed another controversy, whether the table, placed in the room of the altar, ought to stand altar-wise? i. e. in the same place and situation of the altar. In some churches the tables were placed in the middle of the chancels; in others, at the east part thereof, next to the wall. Bishop Ridley endeavoured to make a compromise in his church of St. Paul’s, suffering the table to stand in the place of the old altar; but, beating down the wainscot partition behind, laid all the choir open to the east, leaving the table then to stand in the middle of the chancel. Under this diversity of usage matters continued during this king’s reign; but when Queen Elizabeth came to the crown, and a new review of the liturgy was made, the present clause was added—“and the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past.” Whereby an indulgence is given to those cathedral or collegiate churches, where the table stood altar-wise, and fastened to the east part of the chancel, to retain their ancient practice; but the general rule is otherwise, especially as to parish churches; as in the rubric before the Communion, “the table having, at the communion time, a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel, where morning or evening prayer shall be appointed to be said.” So that, by these authorities, where tables were fixed, they ought to remain as they were; and, at the time of the communion, they might either stand at the east wall of the church, or in other place more convenient. But this latitude being granted, several inconveniences arose. Great irreverence was used towards the holy table, hats and gloves were thrown upon it, and the churchwardens and overseers were frequently writing their accounts thereon, the proce ioning boys eating their loaves and cakes, and dogs leaping up at the bread, to the great scandal of our reformation, not only among the Papists, but also among the Protestant churches abroad. Archbishop Laud, out of zeal to reform these abuses, endeavoured to have the communion table set altar-wise, at the east end of the chancel, and to be railed in, engaging many of the bishops to pre this in their visitation articles: and it is one of the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, “that the holy table in every church be decently made, and set in the place where the altar stood; and there commonly covered, as thereto be long eth, and so stand, saving when the communion of the sacrament is to be distributed; at which time, the same shall be so placed in good sort within the chancel,” . Great contentions were for many years kept up in this controversy, till the civil war came on, and all things, civil and sacred, were overwhelmed with confusion. Since the Restoration, no positive determination therein being made, the dispute has happily died, and the tables have generally been settled altar-wise, and railed in; the generality of parishioners esteeming it a decent situation.— Nicholls.