is properly that part of the choir of a church, between the altar or communion-table and the balustrade or rail that encloses it, where the minister is placed at the celebration of the communion. The word comes from the Latin cancellus, which in the lower Latin is used in the same sense, from cancelli, "lattices or cross bars," wherewith the chancels were anciently encompassed, as they now are with rails. The right of a seat and a sepulchre in the chancels is one of the privileges of founders.