Chaplain

A chaplain is a priest or a member of the clergy serving a group of people who are not organized as a mission or church. For example a chaplain is often attached to a military unit (often known as padre), a private chapel, a ship, a prison, a hospital, a college or other (especially boarding) school, even a parliamentary assembly and so on.

Court

Many historical monarchies and major noble houses also had or still have one or often several 'private' chaplains, either following them or attached to a castle or other residence which generally had at least one 'chapel', sometimes as grand as a cathedral (as St.Georges chapel in Windsor castle, also the 'home' of the Order of the Garter).

Related Topics:
Noble - Order of the Garter

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As in feudal times most laymen, for centuries even most noblemen, were poorly or not educated, this literate clergy was often employed as advisers and secretarial staff (as in a chancery) untill the advent of legists and proper bureaucratic civil service (mainly under Absolutism), hence the term clerk derived from Latin clericus ('clergyman'), making them very influential in temporal affairs as well the moral impact as hearing the confession of the elite.

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