CHANCERY (Fr, dim/NI/me It.. Ale& Lat. imam/1(TM, froin coa•clla•ius, chancellor, from Lat. canecni, lattice), Coutrr In English law, the court presided over by the Lord Iligh Chancellor, and until recently the highest court in England, inferior only to Parliament. trig Malty a chancery was the of a secretary or chancellor (q.v.I, where official doiannents were put in form, sealed, and dispatched, or filed as records.
The jurisdiction of the ('»urt. of Chancery was developed subsequently to the establishment of the English courts of law. and consisted of that portion of the King's judicial prerogative in civil causes which he had not delegated to the courts of law. Whenever, in the early history of the COM111011 law. a suitor conceived that he had suffered an injury or wrong for which the courts of law afforded no remedy by means of a •ommon-law writ (q.v.), his only recourse was to petition the Crown. These petitions came to be addressed to the Chancellor, who, as the chief oqicer and adviser of the Crown and Keeper of the Great Seal, was deemed to he a personal representative of the King, and thus endowed with It is j icial prerogative. The practice of obtaining relief in this manner gradnally took on the character of a judicial proceeding, and the Chancellor's office, or ehancery, came to be known as the court of the Chancellor or the Court of Chancery; or in modern times, as the Court of Equity (q.v.). To this peculiar origin of chan cery jurisdiction is due several peculiarities in the manner ill which jurisdiction is exercised which arc fundamental ill equity jurisprudence. Tim., as the Chancellor was the personal repre sentative of the King, his authority was personal. It could be exercised at any time, whether in term time or vacation, and at any place in the kingdom. the judges of the courts of law, he could command an act to be or not to be done, as, by virtue of his office., his com mands were the commands of the sovereign, he who refused obedience was guilty of contempt to the King, and his disobedience was punishalde by imprisonment and, as an ecclesiastic. the Chancellor could invoke the power of the Church and punish the contempt fry excommunication. By reason of these powers of the Chancellor, the Court of Chancery became a court acting is personam, as distinguished from courts of law, which acted in rem.
The emninon-law procedure was founded on the theory that the parties to an action owed no obedience to the court. Thus, if the plaintiff brought an action at law to recover property wrongfully withheld from him by the defendant. Or fo reeover damages for tort or breach of con tract, the court could give judgment for the plaintiff, and then by its writ direct the sheriff to seize the property and deliver it to the plain ti• or levy upon the defendant's property and then satisfy the judgment; hut if the defendant concealed the property of the plaintiff or his own. or removed it. from the jurisdiction. the
court of law was powerless to act. On the other band. the court. Of equity. in :t proper ease, could direet the defendant to perform his contract or to turn over property to the plaintiff, In' to do any act required by justice or the ne•essities of the ease. It followed, from the difference in the character of the jurisdiction that was exercised by the two courts, that while the relief afforded by the court of law was neeessarily remedial, the relief afforded in chancery might be. and fre quently Was, preventive. Thus the court of law had no power to restrain a defendant from doing an act which might injure the plaintiff in the future, lint the Chancellor. by reason of his power (o eommand, might. issue an injunction directing the defendant. to refrain from such an act.
Another important consequence of the differ e in kind of jurisdiction exercised by the two courts was the ability of the Chancellor to deal With a many-sided eontroversy. A controversy at law was necessarily The law court could only lied a verdict and a judgment for either the plaintiff or defendant : but, in asmuch as the ( hancellor unight require obedience to his decrees on pain of punishment for con tempt. it was possible for him, in a single pro ceeding, to determine and adjust the rights of numerous parties. not only as plaintiff and defendant. but as het Wcen those W110, nom inally co-defendants. actually had some contro versV among themselves. As recourse to the ma. originally due to the inability of the litigant to obtain iclief at law. it became a fundamental principle of the t. mint of Chancery that it would take jurisdiction of the (muse only wl en it appeared that there was no adequate remedy at law. .11(uwver, as the Chancellor was originally an ecclesiastic and the 'keeper of the conscience.' he was said to exercise his jurisdiction on conscientious or equitable prin eiples, for the purpose of doing justice, without regard to the strict Mlles of the c0111111011 This gave rise to eertain basic. equitable princi ple- unknown to the law. which, however, when established hy precedent. Were applied by eourt of equity in 11111(.11 the same manner that courts if law applied legal principles.