Chancellor

[L. Lat. cancellarius; L. Fr. chancelier.] The presiding judge in the court of chancery. See Chancery. In England, the Lord High Chancdlor is the highest judicial officer of the realm, and in point of precedency ranks above every temporal lord.

3 BL Com. 46. 1 Wooddes. LecL 95. 8 Steph. Com. 407.

He is, however, much more than a judicial officer, being also keeper of the great seal, a privy coimsellor, and prolocutor of the House of Lords. 3 BL Com. 47. In American law, the judges of such state courts as are exclusively courts of equity, are called chancellors, but the office is strictly a judicial one. See Chancery. The title and office of chancellor are generally supposed to be derived from the cancellarius, (q. v.) of the lower Roman empire, from which source they passed to the various modern kingdoms of Europe, includiMT the Anglo-Saxons, among whom the office is well ascertained to have existed. Sir Henry Spelman has ^Iven a list of all the chancellors of England from the earliest Saxon period. Gloss, voc.

Cancellarius

According to Selden, the oldest mention in good authority, of the name of chancellor of England, is in the time of Edward the elder, ahout the year 920, who constituted Tnrketill (Turketulua) his chancellor with very transcendent powers.

Selden*8 Office of Chancellor, (Works, toI. iii. 1466,) cited 1 Wooddee, Led. 96, 97. 1 Spenee'e Chaneery, 78, 79.

The word chancellor itself seems to have been formed immediately from the L. Fr. chancelter, or chauncellier. The Saxon word was boceras; but the Lat. cancellariua was always used in charters and reccn-ds, as well as by the old chroniclers. Spelman, voc. Cancellarius, For the original derivation of the term, see Cancellarius. Chancellor of a diocxsb, or of a