Explicit references to the chancery or a chancellor are few and widely scattered, and the surviving documentation does not in aggregate prove the existence of secretarial practices or procedures, or specialized personnel, essentially different from the arrangements of magnates within the English kingdom proper.
In many ways, however, the privilege seems to have been as much, if not more, a matter of style and of nomenclature as of substance. The conclusion would seem to be that for lay estates within England, private writing-offices exhibit the same characteristics, mutatis mutandis, as those noted for the twelfth century earls of Gloucester and that when the term chancery does appear by the later thirteenth century, the authority of the monarchy restricted its use – apart from members of the royal family, who constitute a separate and special class – to some, by no means all, of the lords of the Welsh March, where the dignity and nature of marcher, quasi-royal status could only be enhanced by the existence of such an office 10.įor the earls of Gloucester, therefore, it is to their marcher lordship of Glamorgan that one must look for any mention of the structure and operation of a chancery. Maddicott for the latter, while revealing elaborate and busy administrations, make no mention of the existence of chanceries 9. Apart from the Clares, who inherited the earldom of Gloucester estates and title in 1217, the household organizations of Isabella de Fortibus, countess of Devon and Aumale (d. 1293), and of Thomas, earl of Lancaster (d. 1322), are among the very few in this period for which sufficient private archives have survived to permit systematic study. While royal and episcopal cancellarial practices, and chanceries as such, come into sharp focus in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, private ones within England simply do not. In either case, the term chancery is neither found, nor, strictly speaking, is it permissible. Clanchy has countered this by pointing to the relatively small number of acta, and to the lack of continuity of specialized scribal personnel 8. Patterson, who has argued vigorously for sufficient regularity of scribal practices to justify the term scriptorium, or at least the slightly less formal term secretariat, for writing arrangements 7 but Dr. M.T. The Earldom of Gloucester charters prior to 1217 have been superbly edited by Professor R.B. The term “chancery” is not found before the middle of the thirteenth century, and even after that date its use is rare, and geographically limited to marcher, as distinct from English, holdings. For the earlier period (the twelfth century) the nature and organization of even the royal chancery are matters of some obscurity and controversy, while on the episcopal side to speak of formal chanceries prior to the thirteenth century is, in Cheney’s words, “to dignify the secretariat by a title it did not employ 6.” For private magnates such as the earls of Gloucester, the uncertainties and ambiguities are even more acute.
The difficulties are both evidentiary, and terminological. These studies reveal some variations in cancellarial practice and organization, but point at least to a degree of specialized and standardized activity that is impossible to obtain or to ascertain for other magnates. Such figures include the future King Edward I, prior to his accession in 1272 3, but more extensive treatment, made possible by greater surviving evidence, has been accorded his own son and heir, Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales 4, and also two of the sons of King Edward III, namely Edward the Black Prince (d. 1376), and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (d. 1399) 5. Every lord, of course, had his own seal and the need for some sort of writing-office, for the issuance, the warranting, or the recording of charters, deeds, letters, and other administrative matters but formal, organized chanceries, so termed, were confined to those few lords who could claim palatine or Marcher powers, and to certain members of the royal family who usually held such palatine lordships and whose household administrations are better described as subordinate or subsidiary royal, rather than as purely private and non-royal, organizations. Private chanceries, on the other hand, are few in number and poorly documented for the most part. Cheney has written the definitive account of the origins and early growth of episcopal chanceries 2. The royal chancery, as perhaps the busiest and most highly organized of all the central departments of state, has received expert critical attention in the past half-century, inspired by the magisterial work of T.F. In view of the abundant materials available for the study of the English state and government in the later middle ages, it is disappointing that little has survived to illuminate the history of magnate chanceries.
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