Editing Court of Chancery (section)

=== Rise and early years ===
The Chancery came to prominence after the decline of the Exchequer, dealing with the law of [[Equity (law)|equity]], something more fluid and adaptable than the [[common law]]. The early Court of Chancery dealt with verbal contracts, matters of land law and matters of trusts, and had a very liberal view when setting aside complaints; poverty, for example, was an acceptable reason to cancel a contract or obligation.<ref>Carne (1927) p. 403</ref> Complaints were normally brought via a bill or petition, which had to show that the common law did not provide a remedy for the problem. The Chancery [[writ]]s were in French, and later English, rather than the Latin used for common law bills.<ref>Carne (1927) p. 404</ref> In the reign of [[Edward III]], the court found a fixed home at [[Westminster Hall]], where it sat almost continually until its dissolution.<ref>Kerly (1890) p. 30</ref> Before this, justice was difficult to dispose because the lord chancellor had to travel with the King wherever he went.<ref>Kerly (1890) p. 31</ref>

[[File:Microcosm of London Plate 094 - Westminster Hall edited.jpg|thumb|alt=A very large room, with a high vaulted ceiling, mostly empty save for a few small groups of people.|[[Westminster Hall]], where the Court sat almost continuously from the reign of [[Edward III]] until its dissolution in 1875]]

By 1345 the lord chancellor began to be seen as the leader of the Court of Chancery, rather than as a representative of the king, and writs and bills were addressed directly to him. Under [[Richard II]] it became practice to consider the Chancery separate from the ''curia''; academic William Carne considers this a key moment in confirming the independence of the Court of Chancery.<ref>Carne (1927) p. 405</ref> The chancellor and his clerks often heard the cases directly, rather than having them referred to the council itself; occasionally a committee of lay and church members disposed of them, assisted by the judges of the common law courts.<ref>Carne (1927) p. 410</ref> [[John Baker (legal historian)|John Baker]] argues that it was the late 14th century that saw Chancery procedure become fixed, citing the work done by [[John Waltham]] as master of the rolls between 1381 and 1386, and notes that this period also saw the first complaints about the Chancery.<ref>Baker (2002) p. 103</ref>

The Chancery and its growing powers soon came to be resented by Parliament and the nobility; Carne says that it is possible to trace a general "trend of opposition" during the [[Plantagenet]] period, particularly from members of the clergy, who were more used to [[Roman law]] than equity.<ref name=car413/> From the reign of Richard II, the [[House of Commons of England|House of Commons]] regularly complained about the work of the court, and in 1390 it petitioned the king to pronounce that the court could not act contrary to the common law, nor annul a judgment without due process. At the same time, it asked that no writ could be issued that would compel a man to appear before the court; if it was, the clerk who issued it would lose his job and the lord chancellor would be fined £100. The king gave evasive answers to the requests, and made no decision.<ref name=car413>Carne (1927) p. 413</ref> The Commons did succeed in making some changes to the court's procedure, however; in 1394 the King assented to their request that victorious defendants in the court have their costs recompensed from the other side, and in 1341 the king, on their application, allowed the lord chancellor to send cases directly to the common law courts, to avoid the common law judges having to waste time travelling.<ref name="Carne 1927 p.414">Carne (1927) p. 414</ref> Kerly suggests that many complaints from the Commons came from lawyers of the common law, aggrieved at the Chancery's extended jurisdiction that overlapped with that of the common law.<ref>Kerly (1890) p. 37</ref> These complaints from the Commons did not prevent the court from successfully functioning; in 1393, for example, it was considered prominent enough that the [[House of Lords]] sent two cases there to be dealt with.<ref>Kerly (1890) p. 40</ref>

According to many academics, the Court of Chancery really began to expand its caseload during the 15th century; Margaret Avery reports a massive increase in cases during the 1440s, while [[Nicholas Pronay]] suggests that the real expansion came during [[House of York|Yorkist]] rule (1461–85), when the number of cases submitted each year quadrupled. He gives complaints about the perversion of justice in the common law courts, along with growing mercantile and commercial interests, as the main reason for the growth, arguing that this was the period when the Chancery changed from being an administrative body with some judicial functions to "one of the four central courts of the realm&nbsp;... the growth in the number of [cases] is a primary indicator of the changing position of Chancery".<ref>Tucker (2000) p. 792</ref> This increasing role was assisted by the changing function of the court: until the late 14th century, private parties could not bring cases to the Chancery as they could to the other courts, while by the 15th century the number of private cases had increased to the point where there were many complaints in Parliament.<ref>Tucker (2000) p. 800</ref> Marsh writes that another reason for the Chancery's growing influence was the remedies available; through orders of [[specific performance]] and [[injunction]]s, the court could not only rectify previous wrongs but prevent future wrongs from occurring, while the common law courts were limited to awarding [[damages]].<ref>Marsh (1890) p. 46</ref>

====Chancery's role in development of Standard English====

Chancery English, used in official documents, can be seen as the beginnings of Standard English<ref>Dennis Freeborn, ''From Old English to Standard English,'' 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998.  Orig. publ. 1992), p. 250.</ref> – a national standard of spelling and grammar.  By the 15th century, the City of Westminster had been the seat of government administration for about three centuries. After about 1430, the use of English in administrative documents replaced French which had been used since the Norman conquest.  Consequently, the written English that developed at the Court of Chancery eventually became a standard, both in its style of handwriting ('[[Chancery hand]]') and in its grammar and vocabulary.  By the 1440s and 1450s comparative regularisation of spelling had begun to emerge.<ref>Dennis Freeborn, ''From Old English to Standard English'' 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998.  Orig. publ. 1992), pp. 247–250, quoting J. Fisher ''et al.'', ''An Anthology of Chancery English'' (1984).</ref>