12 ft. to 15 ft., the beam from 26 in. to 30 in., the depth 10 in. to 16 in. The paddle is 7 ft. long and 6 in. wide in the blade, the canoeist sits low in a cockpit, and in paddling dips the blades first on one side and then the other. The rig is generally yawl.
In 1866 the Royal Canoe Club was formed in England, and the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) became commodore. Its headquarters are at Kingston-on-Thames and it is still the leading organization. There is also the British Canoe Association, devoted to cruising. After the English canoes were seen in Paris at the Exhibition of 1867, others like them were built in France. Branches and clubs were formed also at the English universities, and in Liverpool, Hull, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The New York Canoe Club was founded in 1871. One member of the Royal Canoe Club crossed the English Channel in his canoe, another the Irish Channel from Scotland to Ireland, and many rivers were explored in inaccessible parts, like the Jordan, the Kishon, and the Abana and the Pharpar at Damascus, as well as the Lake Menzaleh in the Delta of the Nile, and the Lake of Galilee and Waters of Merom in Syria.
W. Baden Powell modified the type of the “Rob Roy” in the “Nautilus,” intended only for sailing. From this time the two kinds of pleasure canoe—paddling and sailing—parted company, and developed each on its own lines; the sailing canoe soon (1882) had a deck seat and tiller, a smaller and smaller cockpit, and a larger and larger sail area, with the consequent necessary air and water-tight bulkheads in the hull. Paul Butler of Lowell, Mass., added (1886) the sliding outrigger seat, allowing the canoeist to slide out to windward. The final stage is the racing machine pure and simple, seen in the exciting contests at the annual August meets of the American Canoe Association on the St Lawrence river, or at the more frequent race days of its constituent divisions, associated as Canadian (47 clubs), Atlantic (32 clubs), Central (26 clubs) and Western.
The paddling canoe, propelled by single-bladed paddles, is also represented in single, tandem and crew (“war canoe”) races, and this form of the sport remains more of the amateur type. The “Canadian,” a clinker or carvel built mahogany or cedar or bass-wood canoe, or the painted canvas, bark or compressed paper canoe, all on the general lines of the Indian birch bark, are as common on American rivers as the punt is on the Thames, and are similarly used.
See MacGregor, A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe (1866), The Rob Roy on the Baltic, &c.; W. Baden Powell, Canoe Travelling (1871); W. L. Alden, Canoe and the Flying Proa (New York, 1878); J. D. Hayward, Camping out with the British Canoe Association; C. B. Vaux, Canoe Handling (New York, 1888); Stephens, Canoe and Boat Building (New York, 1881).
CANON. The Greek word κανών means originally a straight rod or pole, and metaphorically what serves to keep a thing upright or straight, a rule. In the New Testament it occurs in Gal. vi. 16, and 2 Cor. x. 13, 15, 16, signifying in the former passage a measure, in the latter what is measured, a district. The general applications of the word fall mainly into two groups, in one of which the underlying meaning is that of rule, in the other that of a list or catalogue, i.e. of books containing the rule. Of the first, such uses as that of a standard or rule of conduct or taste, or of a particular form of musical composition (see below) may be mentioned, but the principal example is of the sum of the laws regulating the ecclesiastical body (see Canon Law). In the second group of uses that of the ecclesiastical dignitary (see below), that of the list of the names of those persons recognized as saints by the Church (see Canonization), and that of the authoritative body of Scriptures (see below) are examples.
Music.—A canon in part-music is the form taken by the earliest compositions in harmony, successive or consequent parts having the same melody, but each beginning at a stated period after its precursor or antecedent. In many early polyphonic compositions, one or more voices were imitated note for note by the others, so that the other parts did not need to be written out at all, but were deduced from the leaders by a rule or canon. Sir Frederick Bridge has pointed out that in this way the term “canon” came to supersede the old name of the art-form, Fuga ligata. (See also under Fugue, Contrapuntal Forms and Music.) When the first part completes its rhythmical sentence before the second enters, and then continues the melody as an accompaniment to the second, and so on for the third or fourth, this form of canon in England was styled a “round” or “catch”; the stricter canon being one in which the succession of parts did not depend on the ending of the phrase. But outside England catches and canons were undifferentiated. The “round” derived its name from the fact that the first part returned to the beginning while the others continued the melody; the “catch” meant that each later part caught up the tune. The problem of the canon, as an artistic composition, is to find one or more points in a melody at which one or more successive parts may start the same tune harmoniously. Catches were familiar in English folk music until after the Restoration; different trades having characteristic melodies of their own. In the time of Charles II they took a bacchanalian cast, and later became sentimental. Gradually the form went out as a type of folk music, and now survives mainly in its historical interest. (H. Ch.)
The Church Dignitary.—A canon is a person who possesses a prebend, or revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or collegiate church. Though the institute of canons as it at present exists does not go back beyond the 11th century it has a long history behind it. The name is derived from the list (matricula) of the clergy belonging to a church, κανών being thus used in the council of Nicaea (c. 16). In the synod of Laodicea the adjective κανονικός is found in this sense (c. 15); and during the 6th century the word canonicus occurs commonly in western Europe in relation to the clergy belonging to a cathedral or other church. Eusebius of Vercelli (d. 370) was the first to introduce the system whereby the cathedral clergy dwelt together, leading a semi-monastic life in common and according to rule; and St Augustine established a similar manner of life for the clergy of his cathedral at Hippo. The system spread widely over Africa, Spain and Gaul; a familiar instance is St Gregory’s injunction to St Augustine that at Canterbury the bishop and his clergy should live a common life together, similar to the monastic life in which he had been trained; that these “clerics” at Canterbury were not monks is shown by the fact that those of them in the lower clerical grades were free to marry and live at home, without forfeiting their position or emoluments as members of the body of cathedral clergy (Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 27). This mode of life for the secular clergy, which became common in the west, seems never to have taken root in the east. It came to be called vita canonica, canonical life, and it was the object of various enactments of councils during the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries. The first serious attempt to legislate for it and reduce it to rule was made by Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (c. 750), who composed a rule for the clergy of his cathedral, which was in large measure an adaptation of the Benedictine Rule to the case of secular clergy living in common. Chrodegang’s Rule was adopted in many churches, both cathedral and collegiate (i.e. those served by a body of clergy). In 816 the synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (see Mon. Germ. Concil. ii. 307) made further regulations for the canonical life, which became the law in the Frankish empire for cathedral and collegiate churches. The Rule of Chrodegang was taken as the basis, but was supplemented and in some points mitigated and made less monastic in character. There was a common dormitory and common refectory for all, but each canon was allowed a dwelling room within the cloister; the use of flesh meat was permitted, and the clothing was of better quality than that of monks. Each canon retained the use of his private property and money, but the revenues of the cathedral or church were treated as a common fund for the maintenance of the whole establishment. The chief duty of the canons was the performance of the church services. Thus the canons were not monks, but secular clergy living in community, without taking the monastic vows or resigning their private means—a form of life somewhat resembling that of the fathers of the London or Birmingham Oratory in our day. The bishop was expected to lead the common life along with his clergy.
The canonical life as regulated by the synod of Aix, subsisted in the 9th and 10th centuries; but the maintenance of this
