CHANCELLOR

In American law, this Is the name given in some states to the judge (or the presiding judge) of a court of chancery. In England, besides being the designation of the chief judge of the court of chancery, the term is used as the title of several judicial officers attached to bishops or other high dignitaries and to the universities. (See infra.) In Scotch practice, it denotes the foreman of an assise or jury. Chancellor of a cathedral. In English ecclesiastical law. One of the quatuor personw, or four chief dignitaries of the cathedrals of the old foundation. The duties assigned to the office by the statutes of the different chapters vary, but they are chiefly of an educational character, with a special reference to the cultivation of theology. Chancellor of a diocese. In ecclesiastical law, the officer appointed to assist a bishop in, matters of law, and to hold his consistory courts for him. 1 Bl. Comm. 382; 2 Steph. Comm. 672. Chancellor of a university. In English law. The official head of a university. His principal prerogative is to hold a court with jurisdiction over the members of the university, in which court the vice chancellor presides. The office is for the most part honorary. Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In English law. An officer before whom, or his deputy, the court of the duchy chamber of Lancaster is held. This is a special jurisdiction concerning all manner of equity relating to lands holden of the king in right of the duchy of Lancaster. Hob. 77; 3 Bl. Comm. 78 Chancellor of the exchequer. In English law. A high officer of the crown, who formerly sat in the exchequer court, and, together with the regular judges of the court, saw that things were conducted to the king’s benefit. In modern times, however, his duties are not of a judicial character, but such as pertain to a minister of state charged with the management of the national revenue and expenditure Chancellor of the order of the garter, and other military orders, in England, is an officer who seals the commissions and the mandates of the chapter and assembly of the knights, keeps the register of their proceedings, and delivers their acts under the seal of their order. Chancellor, the lord high. In England, this is the highest judicial functionary in the kingdom, and superior, in point of precedency, to every temporal lord. He is appointed by the delivery of the king’s great seal into his custody. He may not be a Roman Catholic. He is a cabinet minister, a privy counsellor, and prolocutor of the house of lords by prescription, (but not necessarily, though usually, a peer of the realm,) and vacates his office with the ministry by which he was appointed. To him belongs the appointment of all justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Being, in the earlier periods of English history, usually an ecclesiastic, (for none else were then capable of an office so conversant in writings,) and presiding over the royal chapel, he became keeper of the sovereign’s conscience, visitor, in right of the crown, of the hospitals and colleges of royal foundation, and patron of all the crown livings under the value of twenty marks per annum in the king’s books. He is the general guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics, and has the general superintendence of all charitable uses, and all this, over and above the vast and extensive jurisdiction which he exercises in his judicial capacity in the supreme court of judicature, of which he is the head. Wharton. Vice chancellor. In English law. A judge of the court of chancery, acting as assistant to the lord chancellor, and holding a separate court, from whose judgment an appeal lay to the chancellor. 3 Steph. Comm. 418.