Chapel

Chapel (probably from cappa, a cloak; originally the tent in which was kept the cloak of St, Martin, carried to war by the early French kings), strictly speaking any building in which Divine service is carried on, other than the parish church. Such buildings, dedicated to some special saint or to the Virgin Mary, are always attached to cathedrals, sometimes to parish churches; every college at Oxford and Cambridge has its chapel, as have some of the London City Companies and the Inns of Court, and some noblemen have domestic chapels. Chapels of ease in the Church of England are built for the accommodation of parishioners for whom the parish church is too small or too distant, and served by clergy from the parish church. They differ from the mission chapels of late years in being consecrated. Strictly speaking, Nonconformist and Roman Catholic places of public worship in England are called chapels.