ction of a 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 body of the canons of a
cathedral or collegiate church, presided over, in the English Church, by
the dean, and in the 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 reading a chapter of Scripture, or a head (_capitulum_) of the
_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 CANON; CATHEDRAL; DEAN).

CHAPTER-HOUSE (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., depend on 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.

CHAPU, formerly an important maritime town of China, in the province of
Cheh-kiang, 50 m. N.W. of Chen-hai, situated in one of the richest and
best cultivated districts in the country. It is the port of Hang-chow,
with which it has good canal communication, and it was formerly the only
Chinese port trading with Japan. The town has a circuit of about 5 m.
exclusive of the suburbs that lie along the beach; and the Tatar quarter
is separated from the rest by a wall. It was captured and much injured
by the British force in 1842, but was abandoned immediately after the
engagement. The sea around it has now silted up, though in the middle of
the 19th century it w