CHANCELLOR, was at first only a chief notary or scribe under the emperors; and was called cancellarius, because he sat behind a lattice (in Latin cancellus), to avoid being crowded by the people: though some derive the word from cancellare, "to cancel." (See CHANCERY.) This officer was afterwards invested with several judicial powers, and a general superintendency over the rest of the officers of the prince. From the Roman empire it passed to the Roman church, ever emulous of imperial state: and hence every bishop has to this day his chancellor, the principal judge of his consistory. And when the modern kingdoms of Europe were established upon the ruins of the empire, almost every state preserved its chancellor with different jurisdictions and dignities, according to their different constitutions. But in all of them he seems to have had the supervision of all charters, letters, and such other public instruments of the crown as were authenticated in the most solemn manner: and therefore, when seals came in use, he had always the custody of the king's great seal.
Lord High CHANCELLOR of Great Britain, or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, is the highest honour of the long robe, being created by the mere delivery of the king's great seal into his custody: whereby he becomes, without writ or patent, an officer of the greatest weight and power of any now subsisting in the kingdom. He is a privy counsellor by his office; and, according to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, prolocutor of the house of lords by prescription. To him belongs the appointment of all the justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Being in former times commonly an ecclesiastical (for none else were then capable of an office so conversant in writing), and presiding over the royal chapel, he became keeper of the king's conscience; visitor, in right of the king, of all hospitals and colleges of the king's foundation; and patron of all the king's livings under the value of 201. per annum in the king's books. He is the general guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics; and has the general superintendency of all charitable uses in the kingdom; and all this over and above the vast extensive jurisdiction which he exercises in his judicial capacity in the court of chancery. He takes a precedence of every temporal lord except the royal family, and of all others except the archbishop of Canterbury. See CHANCERY.