The archbishop of Mainz was arch-chancellor for Germany. The archbishop of Cologne held the dignity for Italy, and the archbishop of Trier for Gaul and the kingdom of Arles. The second and third of these dignities became purely formal with the decline of the Empire in the 13th century. But the arch-chancellorship of Germany remained to some extent a reality till the Empire was finally dissolved in 1806. The office continued to be attached to the archbishopric of Mainz, which was an electorate. Karl von Dalberg, the last holder of the office, and the first prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine, continued to act in show at least as chancellor of that body, and was after a fashion the predecessor of the Bundes Kanzler, or chancellor of the North German Confederation. The duties imposed on the imperial chancery by the very complicated constitution of the Empire were, however, discharged by a vice-chancellor who was attached to the court of the emperor. The abbot of Fulda was chancellor to the empress.
The house of Austria in their hereditary dominions, and in those of their possessions which they treated as hereditary, even where the sovereignty was in theory elective, made a large and peculiar use of the title chancellor. The officers so called were of course distinct from the arch-chancellor and vice-chancellor of the Empire, although the imperial crown became in practice hereditary in the house of Habsburg. In the family states their administration was, to use a phrase familiar to the French, “polysynodic.” As it was when fully developed, and as it remained until the March revolution of 1848, it was conducted through boards presided over by a chancellor. There were three aulic chancellorships for the internal affairs of their dominions, “a united aulic chancellorship for all parts of the empire (i.e. of Austria, not the Holy Roman) not belonging to Hungary or Transylvania, and a separate chancellorship for each of those last-mentioned provinces” (Hartig, Genesis of the Revolution in Austria). There were also a house, a court, and a state chancellor for the business of the imperial household and foreign affairs, who were not, however, the presidents of a board. These “aulic” (i.e. court) officers were in fact secretaries of the sovereign, and administrative or political rather than judicial in character, though the boards over which they presided controlled judicial as well as administrative affairs. In the case of such statesmen as Kaunitz and Metternich, who were house, court, and state chancellors as well as “united aulic” chancellors, the combination of offices made them in practice prime ministers, or rather lieutenants-general, of the sovereign. The system was subject to modifications, and in the end it broke down under its own complications. We are not dealing here with the confusing history of the Austrian administration, and these details are only quoted to show how it happened that in Austria the title chancellor came to mean a political officer and minister. There is obviously a vast difference between such an official as Kaunitz, who as house, court, and state chancellor was minister of foreign affairs, and as “united aulic” chancellor had a general superiority over the whole machinery of government, and the lord high chancellor in England, the chancelier in France, or the canciller mayor in Castile, though the title was the same. The development of the office in Austria must be understood in order to explain the position and functions of the imperial chancellor (Reichs Kanzler) of the modern German empire. Although the present empire is sometimes rhetorically and absurdly spoken of as a revival of the medieval Empire, it is in reality an adaptation of the Austrian empire, which was a continuation under a new name of the hereditary Habsburg monarchy. The Reichs Kanzler is the immediate successor of the Bundes Kanzler, or chancellor of the North German Confederation (Bund). But the Bundes Kanzler, who bore no sort of resemblance except in mere name to the Erz-Kanzler of the old Empire, was in a position not perhaps actually like that of Prince Kaunitz, but capable of becoming much the same thing. When the German empire was established in 1871 Prince Bismarck, who was Bundes Kanzler and became Reichs Kanzler, took care that his position should be as like as possible to that of Prince Kaunitz or Prince Metternich. The constitution of the German empire is separately dealt with, but it may be pointed out here that the Reichs Kanzler is the federal minister of the empire, the chief of the federal officials, and a great political officer, who directs the foreign affairs, and superintends the internal affairs, of the empire.
In these German states the title of chancellor is also given as in France to government and diplomatic officials who do notarial duties and have charge of archives. The title of chancellor has naturally been widely used in the German and Scandinavian states, and in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great. It has there as elsewhere wavered between being a political and a judicial office. Frederick the Great of Prussia created a Gross Kanzler for judicial duties in 1746. But there was in Prussia a state chancellorship on the Austrian model. It was allowed to lapse on the death of Hardenberg in 1822. The Prussian chancellor after his time was one of the four court ministries (Hofämter) of the Prussian monarchy.
Authorities.—Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “Cancellarius”; W. Stubbs, Const. Hist. of England (1874–1878); Rudolph Gneist, Hist. of the English Constitution (Eng. trans., London, 1891); L. O. Pike, Const. Hist. of the House of Lords (London, 1894); Sir William R. Anson, The Law and Custom of the Constitution, vol. ii. part i. (Oxford, 1907); A. Luchaire, Manuel des institutions françaises (Paris, 1892); K. F. Stumpf, Die Reichs Kanzler (3 vols., Innsbruck, 1865–1873); G. Sceliger, Erzkanzler und Reichskanzleien (ib. 1889); P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht (Berlin, 1869); Sir R. J. Phillimore, Eccles. Law (London, 1895); P. Pradier-Fodéré, Cours de droit diplomatique, ii. 542 (Paris, 1899).
CHANCELLORSVILLE, a village of Spottsylvania county, Virginia, U.S.A., situated almost midway between Washington and Richmond. It was the central point of one of the greatest battles of the Civil War, fought on the 2nd and 3rd of May 1863, between the Union Army of the Potomac under Major-General Hooker, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee. (See American Civil War, and Wilderness.) General “Stonewall” Jackson was mortally wounded in this battle.
CHANCE-MEDLEY (from the A.-Fr. chance-medlée, a mixed chance, and not from chaude-medlée, a hot affray), an accident of a mixed character, an old term in English law for a form of homicide arising out of a sudden affray or quarrel. The homicide has not the characteristic of “malice prepense” which would raise the death to murder, nor the completely accidental nature which would reduce it to homicide by misadventure. It was practically identical, therefore, with manslaughter.
CHANCERY, in English law, the court of the lord chancellor of England, consolidated in 1873 along with the other superior courts in the Supreme Court of Judicature. Its origin is noticed under the head of Chancellor.
It has been customary to say that the court of chancery consists of two distinct tribunals—one a court of common law, the other a court of equity. From the former have issued all the original writs passing under the great seal, all commissions of sewers, lunacy, and the like—some of these writs being originally kept in a hanaper or hamper (whence the “hanaper office”), and others in a little sack or bag (whence the “petty-bag office”). The court had likewise power to hold pleas upon scire facias (q.v.) for repeal of letters patent, &c. “So little,” says Blackstone, “is commonly done on the common law side of the court that I have met with no traces of any writ of error being actually brought since the fourteenth year of Queen Elizabeth.”
The equitable jurisdiction of the court of chancery was founded on the supposed superiority of conscience and equity over the strict law. The appearance of equity in England is in harmony with the general course of legal history in progressive societies. What is remarkable is that, instead of being incorporated with or superseding the common law, it gave rise to a wholly independent set of tribunals. The English dislike of the civil law, and the tendency to follow precedent which has never ceased to characterize English lawyers, account for this unfortunate separation. The claims of equity in its earlier stages are well expressed in the little treatise called Doctor and Student, published in the reign of Henry VIII.:—“Conscience never resisteth the law nor addeth to it, but only when the law is
