By the Bev. J. Baron, D.B., F.S.A. Ill 



and the diaconicon, or vestry, on the south. But the chief detail 

 on which we have to dwell, for our present purpose, is the iconostasis 

 or screen with three openings, at the top of the steps of the bema. 

 This screen is commonly called iconostasis, because upon it are placed 

 the icons or sacred pictures, but the earlier and more proper name 

 is KdjKeXa. Ducange, in his Greek Glossary, gives Kdy/ce\os pi. 

 Kdy/ceXoL, and KdyrceXov, pi. KdjKeXa. For convenience I adhere 

 to the neuter plural Kdy/ceXa, which is the form most commonly 

 used by Greeks in the present day to designate an open fence of 

 iron or wood, in Church or elsewhere. 



It is curious that Du Cange, with his stupendous learning in 

 Eastern as well as Western lore, after giving an admirable historical 

 account of this screen under the word Kay/eeXo?, or K.dy/ceXop, in 

 his Greek Glossary, gives a faltering and puzzled account under 

 ic/covoardcTtov, apparently because, drawing his knowledge chiefly 

 from books and documents, he was not aware that eacovoa-Tacn^ is 

 merely a later name, which has come into use to mean the same 

 thing as Kay/ceXa, which also dates back to a time when probably 

 there were no icons or pictures on the screen, which was in early 

 times a mere lattice or network of wood, as Eusebius calls it in 

 describing the splendid Church built by Bishop Paulinus at Tyre, 

 A.D. 315. 1 



We were told, many years ago, in Mr. Parker's Glossary and else- 

 where, that our English word chancel is derived from the Latin 

 word <( cancelli," a lattice, but this is only part of the. truth. 



The word was used in good classic Latin to mean lattice, or 

 generally a fence, in the days of Cicero, who uses these words, " Me 

 facile vestra existimatione revocabitis si extra hos cancellos egredi 

 conabor quos mihi ipse circumdedi.'"' 2 But the rudiments of the word 

 were in Greek four hundred years before Cicero. Kcy/cXcSes is used 

 in the Knights and Wasps of Aristophanes to mean the lattice gates 



1 '~Ecp' cmaai re to tcov ciylcov ayiov Svo-iao-rrjpLov ev peo~co Sels, avQis Kat 

 raSe cos civ etrj rots ttoXXois a^ara, tols and £v\ov ire pucpparre 8lktvols els 

 aKpov ivrixvov Xenrovpyias e£r)o~Kr]p,evoLs, cos ^avp,do-Lov tols opcotri Tvap£x* lv tt)V 

 Seav. Euseb., X. 4, vol. i., p. 474, ed. Reading, Cambridge, 1720. Cf. Bingham, 

 Antiq. Chr., Bk. viii., Ch. vi., Sect. 6. 



2 Pro. P. Quinctio. 



