Catalogue description Palatinate of Durham: Chancery Court: Chancellors' Notebooks

This series comprises notebooks containing the comments and memoranda of the Chancellor of the Palatinate of Durham, made during sittings of the Chancery Court. Entries, often difficult to read as they were written at speed, record pleadings, evidence, judgments and orders. Often the notes record verbatim clarifications of a legal point made by the chancellor. Sometimes the condition of the parties is noted.

When notes on a new case were begun the chancellor recorded the date and the title of the case, but there are no indexes to the books, so in order to find notes on specific cases it is necessary to conduct a time-consuming search through the books, which run chronologically. Before pursuing such a search, it is best to identify the date of the case from:

the cause books in DURH 22

or files in DURH 27

Durham Chancery Court, 1836-1971