Cancellarii

Cancelli are lattice-work, placed before a window, a door-way, the tribunal of a judge, or any other place.[1]

For other meanings of Cancelli, see Cancello (disambiguation).
"Cancellus" redirects here. For the hermit crab, see Cancellus (genus).

This led to the occupation of cancellarius, which originally signified a porter who stood at the latticed or grated door of the emperor's palace. According to the Historia Augusta, the emperor Carinus (reigned 283-285) gave great dissatisfaction by promoting one of these cancellarii to city prefect, although the veracity of this account is disputed.[lower-alpha 1]

Other cancellarii were legal scribes or secretaries who sat within the lattice-work which protected the tribunals of the judges from the crowd. The chief scribe in Constantinople eventually acquired the term and from his position came the modern "chancellor".[1]

See also

Notes
  1. A large amount of the Historia Augusta is recognised by historians to be inaccurate or false (see Historia Augusta ยง Historical value). The lack of any recorded mention of a cancellarius prior to the fifth century led the historian Otto Seeck to believe that the Historia Augusta was a fifth-century forgery.[2]

References
  1. Smith, William, ed. (1875). "Cancelli". A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: John Murray. p. 236. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  2. Ballou, Susan H., ed. (1932). Historia Augusta. Loeb Classical Library. Heinemann. p. 441. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
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