ARCHCHANCELLOR, or chief chancellor, a title given to the highest dignitary of the Holy Roman empire, and also used occasionally during the middle ages to denote an official who supervised the work of chancellors or notaries. A charter of the emperor Lothair I. dated 844 refers to Agilmar, archbishop of Vienne, as archchancellor, and there are several other references to archchancellors in various chronicles. This office existed in the German kingdom of Otto the Great, and about this time it appears to have become an appanage of the archbishopric of Mainz. When the empire was restored by Otto in 962, a separate chancery seems to have been organized for Italian affairs, and early in the II th century the office of archchancellor for the king dom of Italy was in the hands of the archbishop of Cologne. The theory was that all the imperial business in Germany was supervised by the elector of Mainz, and in Italy by the elector of Cologne. However, the duties of archchancellor for Italy were generally discharged by deputy, and after the virtual separa tion of Italy and Germany, the title alone was retained by the elector. During the i 2th century the elector of Trier took the title of archchancellor for the kingdom of Arles, although it is doubtful if he ever performed any duties in connection with this office. This threefold division of the office of imperial arch chancellor was acknowledged in 1356 by the Golden Bull of the Emperor Charles IV., but the duties of the office were performed by the elector of Mainz. The office in this form was part of the constitution of the empire until 1803 when the archbishopric of Mainz was secularized. The last elector, Karl Theodor von Dal berg, however, retained the title of archchancellor until the dis solution of the empire in 1806.