Catalogue description Records of the Chancery of Durham (Cursitor and Equity)

The bishops of Durham had appointed temporal chancellors since the early thirteenth century, and it was stated in the 1293 quo warranto proceedings that the bishop had his Chancery and heard pleas by his own writs. The palatine Chancery was not, however, fully distinguished from the diocesan secretariat until the episcopate of Richard of Bury (1333-1345). Thereafter it exercised secretarial and judicial functions analogous to those of the royal Chancery. The Chancellor and his clerks had custody of the great seal of the Palatinate, and were responsible for writing and sealing the bishop's letters patent and close, charters and writs, whether de cursu or by episcopal warrant under, for example, the bishop's privy seal.

The Clerk of the Chancery (later known as the Clerk of the Latin Chancery, or the Cursitor) was appointed by episcopal letters patent and ranked second to the Chancellor. He was usually appointed Keeper of the Chancery records. He was responsible for making most writs of Chancery, for mandates on foreign process, and for proceedings under writ of mittimus from the Westminster courts. His secretarial functions also covered such matters as inquisitions post mortem, homages, pardons and extents concerned with entry into or alienation of land and inquisitions ad quod damnum.

He was responsible also for the enrolment of the bishop's letters patent and close, charters, fines, recognizances, deeds and some legal proceedings, on rolls which bore characteristics of the royal close, patent, charter and fine rolls. There were efforts from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century to keep distinct series of patent and close rolls, but they were not wholly successful, and the rolls were known generally as the close rolls of the Durham Chancery.

The abolition of feudal tenures in 1660 somewhat reduced the Cursitor's work; the termination of the Palatinate in 1836 and the consequent discontinuation of chancery enrolment diminished it further. The office was extinguished in 1868 (32 and 33 Victoria, c84).

The Chancery's common law jurisdiction was similar to that of both the royal Chancery and the royal Exchequer: it covered subjects' pleas against episcopal officers and cases involving episcopal estates and revenues. Common law pleas in Chancery were enrolled, sometimes on the main Chancery rolls, sometimes separately.

The equitable jurisdiction which the Chancellor of Durham exercised within the Palatinate by the early sixteenth century was closely similar to that of the royal Chancellor, and came similarly to dominate his work in the following centuries. Likewise, proceedings in the Durham Chancery Court mirrored those of the royal Chancery: bills, answers, replications and rejoinders, interrogatories and depositions, reports, decrees and orders.

The Chancellor, although appointed by the bishop until 1836, was commonly a senior lawyer in the royal courts, whose principal duties and interests lays elsewhere. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there were normally at least two sittings of the Chancery Court each year, but by the nineteenth century, chancellors were prepared to make only one annual visit to Durham to preside at sittings. From 1836, the Chancellor was appointed by the Crown, through the Lord Chancellor's Office.

The bulk of the work of the Chancery Court, between and during sittings, fell on the Registrar (commonly called the Register), also until 1836 an episcopal appointee. He was responsible not only for all the documentary work concerned with the administration and recording of Chancery proceedings, but also for reports (analogous to those of the royal Chancery masters), for writs for subpoena, and for writs of justicies requiring the County Court to hear non-equitable pleas. The Registrar was normally a prominent local lawyer.

The Durham Chancery Court was alleged to enjoy exclusive equity jurisdiction over lands in and residents of the Palatinate, with appeal from its decrees only to the House of Lords. In practice, many cases where one party was not a resident went to the High Court of Chancery in London. Nonetheless, palatine privileges were jealously guarded: only those admitted and enrolled as attorneys in the Durham courts could practice in the Chancery.

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, numerous inclosures were effected by Chancery decree. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, inclosures were more often by Local Acts of Parliament; Acts for lands in the Palatinate normally required that a copy of the award be deposited with the Registrar of the Chancery Court.

By the nineteenth century, the Durham Chancery Court heard few cases. Nevertheless, it survived the abolition of the palatinate in 1836. Its methods of record-keeping were modernised in the early 1880s. Its antiquated procedure was reformed and brought into line with that of the Chancery Division of the Supreme Court by the Palatinate Court of Durham Act, 1889. This act signalled a revival of local use of the court, although its neglect to define the geographical area of the court's competence caused some confusion in the twentieth century. The Chancery Court was still active in 1971, when it was merged in the High Court.