CHAPTER AND VERSE DIVISION IN THE BIBLE

CHAPTER-COURTS (Chorgerichte): The name applied, in the canton of Bern after the Reformation, to the tribunals having charge of matrimonial causes and the execution of church discipline. As early as 1470, the town council of Bern had seriously attempted to take in hand the moral condition of the inhabitants, neglected by the Church. In the same spirit, the Reformation here was rather one of practise than of doctrine. Thus, after the issue of the first reforming decree, it was naturally one of the concerns of the Bernese authorities to replace the suppressed episcopal courts by a new tribunal which should represent the civil government but regard questions coming before it from a religious standpoint. On May 29, 1528, the new court began its work. It was composed of six members-- two from the greater and two from the lesser council, with two preachers. It met in the building belonging to the old chapter, whence it probably took its name. In September it set forth principles to govern matrimonial causes, and in November the other matters coming under its jurisdiction. These were offenses against the law of God which could not be punished as violations of express civil statutes-- such things as drunkenness, incontinence, usury, atheism, superstition, witchcraft, blasphemy, and gambling, which latter was strictly forbidden as unworthy of Christian people. An appeal had been intended to lie to the council, but this was abrogated in Jan., 1529. In March of this year the first formal regulations were put forth, evidently based on those adopted at Zurich in 1525. The punishments prescribed consisted of deprivation of honors and offices, imprisonment, banishment-- not often money fines, which became more usual later. The strictness of the judges caused no little murmuring at first, and the " Great Synod " of Jan., 1532, was obliged to promise that greater mildness should be shown. The attendance of the preachers was even for a time partially dispensed with, but in 1536 they were recalled, since so many questions came up in which their judgment, as expositors of God's word, was needed. In the same year Bern conquered Vaud and the other Savoyard lands to the southwest, and proceeded to introduce the Reformation on its own principles. The ministers of Vaud, especially Viret and Beza, wished to set up a system of strict church discipline on the Geneva model; but this did not agree with the Bernese view of the unity of the State, including the Church within itself, so that ultimately chapter-courts were set up in each church district of the conquered territory. The ministers, under Calvin's influence, stood out, obstinately for strictly ecclesiastical discipline, with excommunication for its principal weapon. Things finally came to an open breach, and the banishment of a number of the clergy. All this attracted greater attention to the system of chapter-courts; and greater severity than ever was shown against wanton dress, fortune-telling, gambling, and immoral dances and songs. The rules of the chapter-courts were enforced in the old local tribunals, which were gradually abolished (1561) in the interest of administrative unity; the same thing happened (1566) in certain cities, such as Brugg and Zofingen, where the magistrates had for a time dealt with matrimonial causes and general morality.

Viret and his friends had, however, been right in a way. The chapter-courts were, after all, of the nature of civil government and police. As such, they had done a good deal for external morality and order; but they could do little for the promotion of vital piety; their connection with the Church was loose and external. The duty of examining and licensing candidates for church offices, which had been originally given to them, fell to another body very soon; the clergy managed their own discipline in their own assemblies; and in the end the chapter-courts had nothing but questions of marriage and paternity and all external police des maeurs. After 1704 appeals were granted to the town council or the Two Hundred; and in 1708 the number was changed to eight secular judges with two clerical assessors. They had now a formal code of their own, with purely secular penalties, which was revised or enlarged at need. They continued to exist (except in the period of the Helvetic Republic, 1798-1803) until the revision of the constitution in 1831. By the law of 1874 most of the duties of the chapter-courts were given to the " church-councils," which now regulate questions of morality in so far as the modern State permits. (E. BLOSCH.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. B. Hundeshagen, Die Konflikte in der Bern. Landeskirche, in C. Trechsel, Beitrage, Bern, 1841-1842; Frickert, Die Kirchengehrauche in Bern, Aarau,1846; Von Sturler in Archiv des historischen Vereins von Bern, 1862; E. Egli, Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Zurcher Reformation, Zurich, 1879.