The Italian scholar Polydore Virgil, writing in the sixteenth century, ascribed the creation of the English royal chancery to William the Conqueror, stating definitely that the king instituted a collegium of scribes for writing diplomata. [5] Polydore was the victim of an erroneous view that is not yet extinct - the view that almost everything that we call civilization was introduced into this country by the Normans. Continental diplomatists have somewhat hastily concluded from this absence of a chancellor that there were no formal rules amongst the English for the drawing up of royal instruments, [6] and even our own Kemble concluded that there were no set formulae peculiar to certain kings that would enable us to distinguish the charter of one period from those of another, in the way it is possible to distinguish a Merovingian from a Carolingian diploma. There were, however fixed formulae used by the Anglo-Saxon kings, and it is possible by a careful study to distinguish the charters of one period from those of another and in some cases even between those of different kings. There were changes, reforms and developments in the method of drawing up these royal instruments, but as these are capable of being reduced to categorical order, it cannot be claimed that these changes argue the lack of a body of trained royal clerks whose duty it was to compose and write out the royal charters, for similar developments occurred in the chanceries of France and Germany. [7] It is to this body of royal scribes that the word 'chancery' is applied in these lectures, although there is no evidence that they were known by that name. Sir Francis Palgrave, in his brilliant but erratic English Commonwealth, maintained that the Anglo-Saxon kings had an official known as a chancellor. [8] That marvel of learning and perspicacity John Selden [9] held more correctly that the title does not appear until the time of Edward the Confessor, [10] and it is somewhat doubtful if it really occurs then as the legal designation of this officer. Kemble reached the same conclusion. [11] As I believe this to be [the] correct view, I must plead guilty to giving these lectures a misnomer, justifying myself by the convenience of the term 'chancery', and claiming that if that institution did not exist in name in England before the Norman Conquest, it did in fact.
We do not know what official name the clerks charged with the preparation of the royal deeds bore, or indeed if they had an official name. On the continent the head of these royal clerks acquired in course of time the Roman name of cancellarius, [12] and by the time of the Norman Conquest he had entered upon that course of development which converted him from the principal scribe and the head of the king's chaplains into the most important executive officer under the king. The title was in use in England possibly in the time of Edward the Confessor, but certainly in that of William the Conqueror. By the time of Henry I, the chancellor already deputes so important a duty as that of the custody of the great seal. [13] But it does not fall within the scope these lectures to trace the later development of the chancellor. The significant thing for us is the absence of any mention of him or his representative in the Old English royal charters. We could not in any case expect this official to bear the title of chancellor, for the Carolingian clerical cancellarius displaced the lay referendarius of the Merovingian kings, [14] and it is under this Roman title that the English official would most likely appear. The charters are, however, silent as to his name or existence.
Professor Brunner, in his admirable essay on the Old English records, has truly said that the most striking peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon charter is that it entirely ignores the writer. [15] As distinguished from the late Roman record, the Old English contains no authentication by its writer. The question of authenticity could be settled by examination of the witnesses, not by the testimony of the writer. From the diplomatic point of view this peculiarity places the Old English records at a disadvantage when compared with the Frankish royal instruments. The former necessarily appear informal, and the Englishman engaged upon the wearisome labour of attempting to distinguish genuine from forged instruments, cannot but envy the continental scholar, who can tell us almost to a day the period during which particular chancellors and scribes wrote or subscribed charters and can even identify the handwriting of the scribes.