CHASTELLAIN

chastellain, georges (d. 1475), burgundian chronicler, was a native of alost in flanders. he derived his surname from the fact that his ancestors were burgraves or chatelains of the town; his parents, who belonged to illustrious flemish families, were probably the jean chastellain and his wife marie de masmines mentioned in the town records in 1425 and 1432. a copy of an epitaph originally at valenciennes states that he died on the 20th of march 1474-5 aged seventy. but since he states that he was so young a child in 1430 that he could not recollect the details of events in that year, and since he was "_ecolier_" at louvain in 1430, his birth may probably be placed nearer 1415 than 1405. he saw active service in the anglo-french wars and probably elsewhere, winning the surname of _l'adventureux_. in 1434 he received a gift from philip the good, duke of burgundy, for his military services, but on the conclusion of the peace of arras in the next year he abandoned soldiering for diplomacy. the next ten years were spent in france, where he was connected with georges de la tremoille, and afterwards entered the household of pierre de breze, at that time seneschal of poitou, by whom he was employed on missions to the duke of burgundy, in an attempt to establish better relations between charles vii. and the duke. during these years chastellain had ample opportunity of obtaining an intimate knowledge of french affairs, but on the further breach between the two princes, chastellain left the french service to enter philip's household. he was at first pantler, then carver, titles which are misleading as to the nature of his services, which were those of a diplomatist; and in 1457 he became a member of the ducal council. he was continually employed on diplomatic errands until 1455, when, owing apparently to ill-health, he received apartments in the palace of the counts of hainaut at salle-le-comte, valenciennes, with a considerable pension, on condition that the recipient should put in writing "_choses nouvelles et morales_," and a chronicle of notable events. that is to say, he was appointed burgundian historiographer with a recommendation to write also on other subjects not strictly within the scope of a chronicler. from this time he worked hard at his _chronique_, with occasional interruptions in his retreat to fulfil missions in france, or to visit the burgundian court. he was assisted, from about 1463 onwards, by his disciple and continuator, jean molinet, whose rhetorical and redundant style may be fairly traced in some passages of the _chronique_. charles the bold maintained the traditions of his house as a patron of literature, and showed special favour to chastellain, who, after being constituted _indiciaire_ or chronicler of the order of the golden fleece, was himself made a knight of the order on the 2nd of may 1473. he died at valenciennes on the 13th of february (according to the treasury accounts), or on the 20th of march (according to his epitaph) 1475. he left an illegitimate son, to whom was paid in 1524 one hundred and twenty livres for a copy of the _chronique_ intended for charles v.'s sister mary, queen of hungary. only about one-third of the whole work, which extended from 1410 to 1474, is known to be in existence, but mss. carried by the habsburgs to vienna or madrid may possibly yet be discovered. among his contemporaries chastellain acquired a great reputation by his poems and occasional pieces now little considered. the unfinished state of his _chronique_ at the time of his death, coupled with political considerations, may possibly account for the fact that it remained unprinted during the century that followed his death, and his historical work was only disinterred from the libraries of arras, paris and brussels by the painstaking researches of m. buchon in 1825. chastellain was constantly engaged during the earlier part of his career in negotiations between the french and burgundian courts, and thus had personal knowledge of the persons and events dealt with in his history. a partisan element in writing of french affairs was inevitable in a burgundian chronicle. this defect appears most strongly in his treatment of joan of arc; and the attack on agnes sorel seems to have been dictated by the dauphin (afterwards louis xi.), then a refugee in burgundy, of whom he was afterwards to become a severe critic. he was not, however, misled, as his more picturesque predecessor froissart had been, by feudal and chivalric tradition into misconception of the radical injustice of the english cause in france; and except in isolated instances where burgundian interests were at stake, he did full justice to the patriotism of frenchmen. among his most sympathetic portraits are those of his friend pierre de breze and of jacques coeur. his french style, based partly on his latin reading, has, together with its undeniable vigour and picturesqueness, the characteristic redundance and rhetorical quality of the burgundian school. chastellain was no mere annalist, but proposed to fuse and shape his vast material to his own conclusions, in accordance with his political experience. the most interesting feature of his work is the skill with which he pictures the leading figures of his time. his "characters" are the fruit of acute and experienced observation, and abound in satirical traits, although the 42nd chapter of his second book, devoted expressly to portraiture, is headed "_comment georges escrit et mentionne les louanges vertueuses des princes de son temps._" the known extant fragments of chastellain's _chroniques_ with his other works were edited by kervyn de lettenhove for the brussels academy in 1863-1866 (8 vols., brussels) as _oeuvres de georges chastellain_. this edition includes all that had been already published by buchon in his _collection de chroniques_ and _choix de chroniques_ (material subsequently incorporated in the _pantheon litteraire_), and portions printed by renard in his _tresor national_, vol. i. and by quicherat in the _proces de la pucelle_ vol. iv. kervyn de lettenhove's text includes the portions of the chronicle covering the periods september 1419, october 1422, january 1430 to december 1431, 1451-1452, july 1454 to october 1458, july 1461 to july 1463, and, with omissions, june 1467 to september 1470; and three volumes of minor pieces of considerable interest, especially _le temple de boccace_, dedicated to margaret of anjou, and the _deprecation_ for pierre breze, imprisoned by louis xi. in the case of these minor works the attribution to chastellain is in some cases erroneous, notably in the case of the _livre des faits de jacques de lalain_, which is the work of lefebvre de saint-remi, herald of the golden fleece. in the allegorical _oultre d'amour_ it has been thought a real romance between breze and a lady of the royal house is concealed. see a. molinier, _les sources de l'histoire de france_; as well as notices by kervyn de lettenhove prefixed to the _oeuvres_ and in the _biographie nationale de belgique_; and an article (three parts) by vallet de viriville in the _journal des savants_ (1867). chasuble (fr. _chasuble_, ger. _kasel_, span. _casulla_; late lat. _casula_, a little house, hut, from _casa_), a liturgical vestment of the catholic church. it is the outermost garment worn by bishops and priests at the celebration of the mass, forming with the alb (q.v.) the most essential part of the eucharistic vestments. since it is only used at the mass, or rarely for functions intimately connected with the sacrament of the altar, it may be regarded as the mass vestment _par excellence_. the chasuble is thus in a special sense the sacerdotal vestment, and at the ordination of priests, according to the roman rite, the bishop places on the candidate a chasuble rolled up at the back (_planeta plicata_), with the words, "take the sacerdotal robe, the symbol of love," &c.; at the end of the ordination mass the vestment is unrolled. the chasuble or _planeta_ (as it is called in the roman missal), according to the prevailing model in the roman catholic church, is a scapular-like cloak, with a hole in the middle for the head, falling down over breast and back, and leaving the arms uncovered at the sides. its shape and size, however, differ considerably in various countries (see fig. 1), while some churches--e.g. those of certain monastic orders--have retained or reverted to the earlier "gothic" forms to be described later. according to the decisions of the congregation of rites chasubles must not be of linen, cotton or woollen stuffs, but of silk; though a mixture of wool (or linen and cotton) and silk is allowed if the silk completely cover the other material on the outer side; spun glass thread, as a substitute for gold or silver thread, is also forbidden, owing to the possible danger to the priest's health through broken fragments falling into the chalice. [illustration: from braun's _liturgische gewandung_, by permission of the publisher, b. herder. fig. 1.--comparative shape and size of chasubles as now in use in various countries. a, b, german. c, roman. d, spanish.] the chasuble, like the kindred vestments (the [greek: phelonion], &c.) in the eastern churches, is derived from the roman _paenula_ or _planeta_, a cloak worn by all classes and both sexes in the graeco-roman world (see vestments). though early used in the celebration of the liturgy it had for several centuries no specifically liturgical character, the first clear instances of its ritual use being in a letter of st germanus of paris (d. 576), and the next in the twenty-eighth canon of the council of toledo (633). much later than this, however, it was still an article of everyday clerical dress, and as such was prescribed by the german council convened by carloman and presided over by st boniface in 742. amalarius of metz, in his _de ecclesiasticis officiis_ (ii. 19), tells us in 816 that the _casula_ is the _generale indumentum sacrorum ducum_ and "is proper generally to all the clergy." it was not until the 11th century, when the cope (q.v.) had become established as a liturgical vestment, that the chasuble began to be reserved as special to the sacrifice of the mass. as illustrating this process father braun (p. 170) cites an interesting correspondence between archbishop lanfranc of canterbury and john of avranches, archbishop of rouen, as to the propriety of a bishop wearing a chasuble at the consecration of a church, lanfranc maintaining as an established principle that the vestment should be reserved for the mass. by the 13th century, with the final development of the ritual of the mass, the chasuble became definitely fixed as the vestment of the celebrating priest; though to this day in the roman church relics of the earlier general use of the chasuble survive in the _planeta plicata_ worn by deacons and subdeacons in lent and advent, and other penitential seasons. at the reformation the chasuble was rejected with the other vestments by the more extreme protestants. its use, however, survived in the lutheran churches; and though in those of germany it is no longer worn, it still forms part of the liturgical costume of the scandinavian evangelical churches. in the church of england, though it was prescribed alternatively with the cope in the first prayer-book of edward vi., it was ultimately discarded, with the other "mass vestments," the cope being substituted for it at the celebration of the holy communion in cathedral and collegiate churches; its use has, however, during the last fifty years been widely revived in connexion with the reactionary movement in the direction of the pre-reformation doctrine of the eucharist. the difficult question of its legality is discussed in the article vestments. _form._--the chasuble was originally a tent-like robe which fell in loose folds below the knee (see plate i. fig. 4). its obvious inconvenience for celebrating the holy mysteries, however, caused its gradual modification. the object of the change was primarily to leave the hands of the celebrant freer for the careful performance of the manual acts, and to this end a process of cutting away at the sides of the vestment began, which continued until the tent-shaped chasuble of the 12th century had developed in the 16th into the scapular-like vestment at present in use. this process was, moreover, hastened by the substitution of costly and elaborately embroidered materials for the simple stuffs of which the vestment had originally been composed; for, as it became heavier and stiffer, it necessarily had to be made smaller. for the extremely exiguous proportions of some chasubles actually in use, which have been robbed of all the beauty of form they ever possessed, less respectable motives have sometimes been responsible, viz. the desire of their makers to save on the materials. the most beautiful form of the chasuble is undoubtedly the "gothic" (see the figure of bishop johannes of lubeck in the article vestments), which is the form most affected by the anglican clergy, as being that worn in the english church before the reformation. _decoration._--though _planetae_ decorated with narrow orphreys are occasionally met with in the monuments of the early centuries, these vestments were until the 10th century generally quite plain, and even at the close of this century, when the custom of decorating the chasuble with orphreys had become common, there was no definite rule as to their disposition; sometimes they were merely embroidered borders to the neck-opening or hem, sometimes a vertical strip down the back, less often a forked cross, the arms of which turned upwards over the shoulders. from this time onward, however, the embroidery became ever more and more elaborate, and with this tendency the orphreys were broadened to allow of their being decorated with figures. about the middle of the 13th century, the cross with horizontal arms begins to appear on the back of the vestment, and by the 15th this had become the most usual form, though the forked cross also survived--e.g. in england, where it is now considered distinctive of the chasuble as worn in the anglican church. where the forked cross is used it is placed both on the back and front of the vestment; the horizontal-armed cross, on the other hand, is placed only on the back, the front being decorated with a vertical strip extending to the lower hem (fig. 1, b, d). sometimes the back of the chasuble has no cross, but only a vertical orphrey, and in this case the front, besides the vertical stripe, has a horizontal orphrey just below the neck opening (see plate i. fig. 2). this latter is the type used in the local roman church, which has been adopted in certain dioceses in south germany and switzerland, and of late years in the roman catholic churches in england, e.g. westminster cathedral (see plate i. figs. 3 and 5). [illustration plate i. fig. 2.--chasuble of pope calixtus iii. (15th century) preserved at valencia. from a photograph by father j.l. braun in _die liturg gewandung_, by permission of the publisher, b. herder. fig. 3.--chasuble of pope pius v. (late 15th century) at s. maria maggiore at rome. from a photograph by father j.l. braun in _die liturg gewandung_. fig. 4.--chasuble dedicated by stephen of hungary (997-1038) and his wife gisela, used as the hungarian coronation robe. (from braun, _die liturg. gewandung_.) fig. 5.--modern roman chasuble of archbishop bourne of westminster. fig. 6.--modern english chasuble, used at st paul's church, knightsbridge, london.] [illustration plate ii. fig. 7.--back of a chasuble of italian brocaded damask (red) with embroidered orphreys. the vestment is of the early 16th century, the orphreys of the late 14th century. (english. in the victoria and albert museum.)] it has been widely held that the forked cross was a conscious imitation of the archiepiscopal pallium (f. bock, _gesch. der liturg. gewander_, ii. 107), and that the chasuble so decorated is proper to archbishops. father braun, however, makes it quite clear that this was not the case, and gives proof that this decoration was not even originally conceived as a cross at all, citing early instances of its having been worn by laymen and even by non-christians (p. 210). it was not until the 13th century that the symbolical meaning of the cross began to be elaborated, and this was still further accentuated from the 14th century onward by the increasingly widespread custom of adding to it the figure of the crucified christ and other symbols of the passion. this, however, did not represent any definite rule; and the orphreys of chasubles were decorated with a great variety of pictorial subjects, scriptural or drawn from the stories of the saints, while the rest of the vestment was either left plain or, if embroidered, most usually decorated with arabesque patterns of foliage or animals. the local roman church, true to its ancient traditions, adhered to the simpler forms. the modern roman chasuble pictured in plate i. fig. 5, besides the conventional arabesque pattern, is decorated, according to rule, with the arms of the archbishop and his see. _the eastern church._--the original equivalent of the chasuble is the phelonion ([greek: phelonion, phelones, phainolion], from _paenula_). it is a full vestment of the type of the western bell chasuble; but, instead of being cut away at the sides, it is for convenience' sake either gathered up or cut short in front. in the armenian, syrian, chaldaean and coptic rites it is cope-shaped. there is some difference of opinion as to the derivation of the vestment in the latter case; the five bishops (report to convocation, 1908) deriving it, like the cope, from the _birrus_, while father braun considers it, as well as the cope, to be a modification of the _paenula_.[1] the phelonion (arm. _shurtshar_, syr. _phaina_, chald. _maaphra_ or _phaina_, copt, _burnos, felonion, kuklion_) is confined to the priests in the armenian, syrian, chaldaean and coptic rites; in the greek rite it is worn also by the lectors. it is not in the east so specifically a eucharistic vestment as in the west, but is worn at other solemn functions besides the liturgy, e.g. marriages, processions, &c. until the 11th century the phelonion is always pictured as a perfectly plain dark robe, but at this period the custom arose of decorating the patriarchal phelonion with a number of crosses, whence its name of [greek: polystaurion]. by the 14th century the use of these polystauria had been extended to metropolitans and later still to all bishops. the purple or black phelonion, however, remained plain in all cases. the greeks and greek melchite metropolitans now wear the _sakkos_ instead of the phelonion; and in the russian, ruthenian, bulgarian and italo-greek churches this vestment has superseded the phelonion in the case of all bishops (see dalmatic and vestments). see j. braun, s.j., _die liturgische gewandung_ (freiburg im breisgau, 1907), pp. 149-247, and the bibliography to the article vestments. (w. a. p.) footnote: [1] the writer is indebted to the courtesy of father braun for the following note:--"that the syrian _phaina_ was formerly a closed mantle of the type of the bell chasuble is clearly proved by the evidence of the miniatures of a syrian pontifical (dated 1239) in the bibliotheque nationale at paris (cf. bild 16, 112, 284, in _die liturgische gewandung_). the liturgical vestments of the armenians are derived, like their rite, from the greek rite; so that in this case also there can be no doubt that the _shurtshar_ was originally closed. the coptic rite is in the same relation to the syrian. moreover, it would be further necessary to prove that the _birrus_, in contradistinction to the _paenula_, was always open in front; whereas, _per contra_, the _paenula_, both as worn by soldiers and in ordinary life, was, like the modern arab _burnus_, often slit up the front to the neck. for the rest, it is obvious that if the syrian _phaina_ was still quite closed in the 13th century, and was only provided with a slit since that time, the same is very probable in the case of the armenian chasuble. the absence of the hood might also be taken as additional proof of the derivation of the _phaina_ from the _paenula_, but i should not lay particular stress upon it. the question is settled by the above-mentioned miniatures." chateau (from lat. _castellum_, fortress, through o. fr. _chastel, chasteau_), the french word for castle (q.v.). the development of the medieval castle, in the 15th and 16th centuries, into houses arranged rather for residence than defence led to a corresponding widening of the meaning of the term _chateau_, which came to be applied to any seigniorial residence and so generally to all houses, especially country houses, of any pretensions (cf. the ger. _schloss_). the french distinguish the fortified castle from the residential mansion by describing the former as the _chateau fort_, the latter as the _chateau de plaisance_. the development of the one into the other is admirably illustrated by surviving buildings in france, especially in the _chateaux_ scattered along the loire. of these langeais, still in perfect preservation, is a fine type of the _chateau fort_, with its 10th-century keep and 13th-century walls. amboise (1490), blois (1500-1540), chambord (begun 1526), chenonceaux (1515-1560), azay-le-rideau (1521), may be taken as typical examples of the _chateau de plaisance_ of the transition period, all retaining in greater or less degree some of the architectural characteristics of the medieval castle. some description of these is given under their several headings. in english the word _chateau_ is often used to translate foreign words (e.g. _schloss_) meaning country house or mansion. for the loire chateaux see theodore andrea cook, _old touraine_ (1892).