page_title: Court of Chancery
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Court of Chancery / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Erected at Westminster Abbey sometime during reign of Edward I, thought to be an image of the King.
context_page_description: The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid the slow pace of change and possible harshness of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including trusts, land law, the estates of lunatics and the guardianship of infants. Its initial role was somewhat different: as an extension of the Lord Chancellor's role as Keeper of the King's Conscience, the Court was an administrative body primarily concerned with conscientious law. Thus the Court of Chancery had a far greater remit than the common law courts, whose decisions it had the jurisdiction to overrule for much of its existence, and was far more flexible. Until the 19th century, the Court of Chancery could apply a far wider range of remedies than common law courts, such as specific performance and injunctions, and had some power to grant damages in special circumstances. With the shift of the Exchequer of Pleas towards a common law court and loss of its equitable jurisdiction by the Administration of Justice Act 1841, the Chancery became the only national equitable body in the English legal system.
context_section_description: The Court of Chancery originated, as did the other High Courts before 1875, in the Norman curia regis or King's Council, maintained by most early rulers of England after 1066. Under the feudal system, the Council was made up of the Monarch, the Great Officers of the Crown and anyone else the Monarch allowed to attend. Its jurisdiction was virtually unlimited, with executive, judicial and legislative functions. This large body contained lawyers, peers, and members of the Church, many of whom lived far from London. It soon became apparent that it was too unwieldy to deal with the nation's day-to-day business. As a result, a smaller curia was formed to deal with the regular business of the country, and this soon split into various courts: first the exchequer of pleas, to deal with finance, and then the Court of Common Pleas, to deal with "common" cases.
  The Chancery started as the personal staff of the Lord Chancellor, described as "a great secretarial bureau, a home office, a foreign office, and a ministry of justice". The earliest reference to legal issues being sent to him is from 1280, when Edward I of England, annoyed with the number of cases coming to him which could have been dealt with by other elements of his administration, passed a statute saying that:
  all petitions which touch the Seal shall come first to the Chancellor; and those which touch the Exchequer, to the Exchequer, and those which touch the Justices, or the law of the land, to the Justices; and those which touch the Jews, to the Justices of the Jews. And if the affairs are so great, or if they are of Grace, that the Chancellor and the others cannot do it without the King, then they shall bring them with their own hands to the King to know his pleasure; so that no Petitions shall come before the King, and his Council, but by the hands of his said Chancellor, and the other chief ministers; so that the King and his Council may, without the load of other business, attend to the great business of his Realm, and of other foreign countries.
  Records show dozens of early cases being sent to the Lord Chancellor and Master of the Rolls, but at the time the Chancellor had no specific jurisdiction to deal with them; the cases were referred to him only as a matter of convenience. Under Edward II the Chancellor dedicated set days to hearing pleas, as documented in the records of the Parliament of Lincoln in 1315, which also show that some cases were heard by his personal staff, the Chancery, and not by the Chancellor. By 1320 requests were regularly sent there, and heard by the judges of the common law courts, with the rules used to settle cases being those of "law or reason", sometimes simply "reason", a far more liberal and adjustable approach than the common law.
caption: Edward I, during whose reign the Chancellor's jurisdiction was established
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