753 



CHANCERY. 



CHANTRY. 



754 



chief justice of the Queen's Bench. The office is one of high antiquity, 

 and the salary is 600(tf. a year. The Master of the Rolls has very 

 considerable patronage, connected principally with the public records, 

 of which he is the keeper. 



The Court of Appeal in Chancery was created by the statute 1 4 & 

 15 Viet. c. 83, to exercise primarily the same appellate jurisdiction as 

 the lord high chancellor, that is to say, to hear and determine appeals 

 from the decrees of the vice-chancellors and master of the rolls. The 

 two judges (who are called lords justices, and have precedence after 

 the master of the rolls) sitting together, or with the chancellor, con- 

 stitute this court of appeal ; but, like the lord chancellor, they may 

 take and dispose of original causes. The lords justices receive from 

 the crown the same authority on matters of lunacy as the chancellor, 

 and they, sitting together without the chancellor, constitute the Court 

 of Appeal in bankruptcy. 



The office of Vice-Chancellor was first created by stat. 53 Geo. III., 



24. There are now three vice-chancellors who, according to the 

 dates of then- appointment, take precedence next to the lords justices, 

 they are appointed by the crown by letters patent, and hold their office 

 during good behaviour. They have power to hear and determine all 

 matters depending in the Court of Chancery either as a court of law 

 or as a court of equity, or as incident to any ministerial office of the 

 said court, or which are subjected to the jurisdiction of such court or 

 of the lord chancellor by any special act of Parliament, as the lord 

 chancellor shall from time to time direct. But all orders and decrees 

 of the vice-chancellors must be signed by the lord chancellor, and the 

 vice-chancellor has no power to alter or discharge any decree or order 

 made by the lord chancellor, unless authorised by the lord chancellor, 

 nor any power to alter or discharge any order or decree of the master 

 of the rolls. The salary is 5(3001. a year. 



Each of these judges, or courts, has nearly an equal share of original 

 power to dispense equity. An appeal (which, strictly speaking, is 

 nothing more than a rehearing of the cause) may be had, as we have 

 seen, from any decision of the master of the rolls or vice-chancellors 

 to the lord chancellor, or to the Court of Appeal in Chancery, which 

 has been of late years principally occupied with such appeals, original 

 causes being generally confined to the courts of the master of the rolls 

 and the vice-chancellors. 



Besides the judges just mentioned, there were formerly other officers 

 of the Court of Chancery .by whom certain parts of its equitable 

 jurisdiction were exercised. The principal of these officers were 

 the masters in ordinary, and the accountant-general. The former 

 office has been abolished; the latter remains one of the most 

 important officers of this court. [ACCOUNTANT-GENERAL.] The 

 masters were teu in number, besides the master of the rolls, who 

 wag the chief of them. It was their duty to execute the orders 

 of the court upon references made to them, and by reports in writing 

 to show how they had executed such orders ; but it would be im- 

 possible to specify every head of reference to the masters, because 

 they were almost as numerous as the subjects of the court's juris- 

 diction. Their duties have now been transferred jxirtly to the judge 

 and partly to the chief clerks of the judge. The latter have now to 

 take the accounts of executor*, administrators, or trustees, or between 

 any parties whatsoever ; to inquire into, and decide upon, the claims of 

 creditors, legatees, and next of kin ; to sell estates, and to approve of 

 the investment of trust-money in the purchase of estates, and, for this 

 purpose (or for any other, as the case may be), to investigate titles, and 

 settle conveyances, referring the same, when necessary, to one of the 

 six conveyancers appointed to advise the court in such matters ; to 

 inquire and report on applications for the appointment of guardians 

 for infants, and the sums to be allowed for their maintenance and 

 education ; to settle lists of contributions on the winding up of 

 joint-stock companies ; and generally to inquire into and inform the 

 conscience of the equity judge upon such matters of fact as are referred 

 to them. 



Besides these officers, each court lias its registrars, and the Court of 

 Chancery generally a body of taxing masters, to tax the bills of costs 

 of the suitors, and a numerous staff of record and writ clerks, who 

 attend to its process, and file and preserve its proceedings. 



The jurisdiction exercised in the Court of Chancery will be explained 

 under another head [EQUITY] ; in this place it will be sufficient to 

 refer to another and distinct though but a small part of its business, 

 which arises on what is called the common laic jurtidiction of the Court 

 nf Chancery. 



It in here that proceedings by and against the crown (other than 

 matters of revenue, which are cognisable in the Exchequer) originate. 

 fMONSTRAXa DE DKOiT ; PETITION OF RIOHT.] To this common law 

 jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery also belongs the power of issuing 

 certain n-riin ; particularly the commissions of the peace, and the writs 

 n! hahfitt cnrpun, and of tertiurari and /iroliibilian. "In this ordinary 

 or legal court," sayn Blackstone, " is kept the nffirina jitstitia, out of 

 which all original writs that pass the great seal, all letters patent, and 

 all commissions of charitable uses, sewers, idiutcy, lunacy, and the like 

 do issue." The issuing of original writs however is now unfrequeut ; 

 for these writs, which were formerly the foundation of all actions in 

 the courts of law at Westminster, have, with few exceptions, been 

 abolished by recent statutes. 



The place where this common law jurisdiction is exercised is the 



AHT.H AND l I. HIV. VOL. II. 



petty-tog office, which is kept solely for this purpose ; and the Court of 

 Chancery, in respect of this jurisdiction, is said to be a court of record, 

 which, as a court of equity, it is not. 



In each of the counties palatine of Lancaster and Durham, and in 

 Ireland, there is a Court of Chancery, which dispenses the same equity 

 within the limits of its jurisdiction as the High Court of Chancery. 

 In the Irish Court of Chancery the lord chancellor of Ireland presides. 

 From the Lancaster court the appeal is to the lords justices ; from the 

 lord chancellor's decree, or that of the Court of Appeal in Chancery, 

 the appeal is immediately to the House of Lords. 



In imitation of the High Court of Chancery in England, various 

 local courts of equity have sprung up in the British dominions and 

 dependencies, which are generally called courts of chancery ; but the 

 equity administered in them appears not to be the settled system 

 which exists in this country, the governors of the colonies being 

 generally the judges. 



Many of the states of North America have their courts of chancery ; 

 but the equitable jurisdiction of some of these is, it seems, more 

 discretionary than that of our own courts of equity. In others of the 

 states the courts of equity which formerly existed have been abolished; 

 and in New York especially, the system of equity which was formerly 

 separately administered as in England, has now been consolidated with 

 the law, so as to constitute one system of jurisprudence, administered 

 in one series of tribunals of original and appellate jurisdiction. 



CHANCERY, INNS OF. [Isss OF COURT.] 



CHANTRY (in the middle-age Latin, Cant&ria), a private religious 

 foundation, of which there were many in England before the Refor- 

 mation, established for keeping up a perpetual succession of prayers 

 for the prosperity of the founder's family while living, and the repose 

 of the souls of those members of it who were deceased. These foun- 

 dations owed their origin to the opinion prevalent in the early Church, 

 of the efficacy of prayer in respect of the dead as well as the living ; 

 and amongst the English, always a devout people, it prevailed in all 

 ranks of society. The inscriptions upon the gravestones of persons of 

 ordinary condition in the times before the Reformation almost always 

 began with " Orate pro anima," which was an appeal to those who 

 resorted to the church, to remember to pray for the soul of the person 

 who slept below. Princes and persons of great wealth, when they founded 

 monasteries, included, amongst the duties of the monks, that they 

 should receive in them their earthly remains, and for ever make 

 mention of the founders in their daily services. When the taste for 

 founding monasteries declined, about the close of the 12th century, the 

 disposition to secure the same object by the foundation of chantries 

 began to prevail, and it continued with unabated zeal to the very eve 

 of the Reformation, when all such foundations were swept away as 

 superstitious. 



A chantry did not necessarily require that any edifice should be 

 erected for it ; they were usually founded in churches already existing : 

 sometimes the churches of the monasteries, sometimes the great 

 cathedral or conventual churches, but very frequently the common 

 parish church, whether in a town or in a rural district. All that was 

 wanted was an altar with a little area before it, and a few appendages ; 

 and places were easily found in churches of even small dimensions, in 

 which such an altar could be raised without interfering inconveniently 

 with tljp more public and general purposes for which the churches 

 were erected. An attentive observation of the fabric of the parish 

 churches of England will often detect where these chantries have been, 

 in some small remains, perhaps, of the altar, which was removed at the 

 Reformation, but more frequently in one of those ornamented niches 

 called piscinas, which were always placed in proximity with the altars. 

 Sometimes there are remains of painted glass which it is easy to see 

 has once been the ornament of one of these private foundations ; and 

 more frequently one of those arched recesses in the wall which are 

 called Founders' Tombs, and which in many instances, no doubt, were 

 actually the tombs of persons to whose memory chantries had been 

 instituted. 



In churches which consisted of only nave and chancel with side 

 aisles, the eastern extremities of the north and south aisles were often 

 xised for these foundations ; in the larger churches, having transepts, these 

 were generally devoted to a similar use. In the great conventual 

 churches and the churches of monasteries, it would appear as if pro- 

 vision had been expressly made for these private chantries in the 

 original construction of the edifice, each window looking eastward 

 being often made to light a small apartment just sufficient to contain 

 an altar and a little space for the officiating priest. 



It was by no means unusual to have four, five, or six different 

 chantries in a common parish church; while in the great churches, 

 such as old St. Paul's in London, the Minster at York, and other 

 ecclesiast : cal edifices of that class, there were at the time of the Refor- 

 mation thirty, forty, or fifty such foundations. When the fabric of a 

 church afforded of itself no more space for the introduction of chan- 

 tries, it was usual for the founders to attach little chapels to the 

 edifice. It is these chantry chapels, the use and occasion of which are 

 now so generally forgotten, which occasion so much of the irregularity 

 of design which is apparent in the parish churches of England. 

 Erected also, as they generally were, in the style of architecture which 

 prevailed at the time, and not in accordance with tlmt of the original 

 fabric, thev are a principal cause of that want of congruity which is 



y c 



