CHANCELLERY. - It is the office in which "the acts of public authorities are drawn up" (C. Paoli) and in which the operations connected with that function are carried out.
The name is not earlier than the 9th century, when for the first time we find the dignity of the cancellarius (v. CANCELLIERE) raised to the direction of this office, but the structure of the medieval chancery is directly linked, without a break in continuity, to that of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was in turn constituted on the model of the chancery of the Roman court. The first emperors must have simply made use of a secretary of their own and of some scribes of servile condition: Augustus, who up to a certain point attended single-handedly to the dispatch of both private and official correspondence, sought to have Horace in his retinue, so that he might help him "in epistulis scribendis", but met with a refusal (Suetonius, Vita Horat.). In the age of Hadrian, however, we find a chancery already constituted, whose offices were headed by various praefecti, coming from the equestrian order. With the subsequent equalization of the two ordines, equestrian and senatorial, between the age of Diocletian and that of Constantine, the duties of the c. passed to personages of senatorial rank, as is shown by the title of clarissimi attributed to them: these functions were dependent on the magister officiorum (Notitia dignitatum, Occid. IX, 15, ed. Seeck, p. 145 = ed. Böcking, p. 43). At the court of Byzantium the c. is found to be constituted of four sections (scrinia), three presided over by a magister (ab epistolis; a libellis; memoriae), one by a comes (dispositionum), dependent on the magister officiorum (Notitia dignit., Orien. XI, 13-16, ed. Seeck, p. 32 = ed. Böcking, p. 38) and later on the quaestor sacri palatii, who directly represented the imperial authority. Each section had a college of notarii principii (cf. Cod. Iustinian., XII, tit. 7) of various grades, and, from the 5th century, a college of referendarii (reporters of petitions to the emperor, guardians of the seal, subscribers of acts).
The organization of the Byzantine imperial c. was adopted by the Romano-barbarian sovereigns: notarii and referendarii are encountered, with roughly the same duties, among the Ostrogoths, the Lombards (where, however, the referendarii appear rarely and without it being possible to specify their competences), and the Merovingians. Under the latter the maior domus acquired a pre-eminent function, so much so that it would be one of these officials, Pepin, who replaced the royal power and began the Carolingian dynasty (752). Pepin the Short, and even more so Charlemagne, brought about an important transformation of the c., drawing its personnel exclusively from the ecclesiastical rank and dividing it into two categories: the notarii, with the task of composing or dictating the document, and the scriptores, who attended to the material compilation of the acts. It is in this period that the cancellarius comes to be at the head of the office, the one who signs the document.
THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLERY
With the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, an imperial chancery was also reconstituted in the West, preserving the organization of that of the Carolingian kings. The title of the one who presided over this office does not appear consistently: in documents he is designated now as notarius, now as protonotarius, now as cancellarius, and sometimes even as magister. It also happens that one encounters a different designation in the text and in the subscription of the same document. Nevertheless, the office of notarius is distinct from that of cancellarius, and subordinate to the latter. Under Louis II, son of Lothair I, the title of archicancellarius appears for the first time, referring to the subdeacon Dructemir (851-61), formerly notarius in Lothair's chancery: an element of great importance because the archchancellor was gradually being transformed into a court function. No less innovative was the action of Louis II the German, son of Louis the Pious and king of Germany from 843 to 876, who in 854 placed at the nominal head of the chancery the archchaplain Grimold, formerly abbot of Weissenburg and then of St. Gall. This precedent, which was later widely followed, while on the one hand it contributed even further to transforming the directing office of the chancery into a court function, on the other hand brought about a certain change in the internal structure of the chancery itself. For although the relations between the chapel and the chancery had already been close previously (the chaplains were, besides everything else, custodians of the royal archive), and on the other hand the archchaplains never deeply interfered in the running of the chancery, it is natural that particular dispositions, issued by the same person to both offices, tended to make their structure uniform, to modify the one by modeling it on the other.
Under Otto I there arose the practice of dividing the chancery according to the various regions of the empire: in 962 there was thus created, alongside a chancery for Germany, a chancery for Italy, to which in the 11th century, under Henry III, another was added for Burgundy. At times a single archchancellor, who is also archchaplain, supervises two chanceries; more often the offices are distinct and conferred on various bishops of the empire. In time, however, they tended to become attached to a particular see, and starting from Lothair of Supplinburg one encounters the archchancellor of Germany entrusted to the archbishop of Mainz, and that of Italy to the archbishop of Cologne. Under Henry VI even the archchancellor of Burgundy became attached to the bishopric of Vienne, later passing, from 1257, to that of Trier, with the title of archicancellarius per regnum Arelatense (Arles) and then for Gaul. The growing political interference of these dignitaries induced Henry VII to undertake a new reform: from then on the archchancellors appointed a single chancellor for the whole empire, who exercised his office in the three chanceries in the name of the sovereign, while remaining bound for his appointment to the aforementioned bishops.
Under Frederick I Barbarossa the title of protonotarius appears for the first time, referring to an official whose attributions are confused with those of the chancellor, whose place he fully assumes in his absence. The distinction of employees into notarii and scriptores was instead perpetuated along the lines of the Carolingian chancery.
THE PONTIFICAL CHANCELLERY
The beginnings of the pontifical chancery are rather obscure, given the scarcity of documents on the matter. It is certain that the Christian communities soon had notarii, on the model of the pagan institutions; to them the origin of the papal chancery seems to be traceable, which in the 5th century undoubtedly had its own definite organization and its own [organization]: the presence of a fixed formulary and the use of certain rhythmic clauses in the pontifical letters that have come down to us through collections offer a certain indication of this (cf. F. Di Capua, Il ritmo prosaico nelle lettere dei Papi e nei documenti della c. romana dal IV al XIV sec., I, Rome 1937, p. 201). Toward the end of the 6th century, the era to which, with the pontificate of Gregory the Great, the first reliable elements date back, the title of notarius et scrinarius is found for chancery officials, which indicates, according to the most accepted opinion, that they also fulfilled the office of archivists. They were gathered into a corporation (schola), which had its seat at the Lateran, headed by a primicerius and with a secundicerius in subordination; among them the notarii regionarii, that is, of the 7 ecclesiastical districts of Rome, held a preeminent position.
From the 8th century, and more precisely from the pontificate of Adrian I (772-95), the officials, who begin to subscribe the documents, appear divided into the two traditional categories of "dataries" and "writers," and have within their sphere, as is evident from the title that accompanies their name in the subscriptions, particular duties: notarius, scrinarius, nomenclator, cancellarius, bibliothecarius. This last office gradually absorbs the duties of the primicerius, and soon the bibliothecarius is found at the head of the chancery: from the pontificate of Gelasius II (1118-19) we see this office always conferred on persons of cardinalitial rank. At the same time, however, under the influence of the imperial chancery, the office of the cancellarius also rises to great power, so much so that with Leo IX (1049-54), who brought substantial changes both as regards the document itself and as regards the personnel of the chancery, one encounters, as in the imperial chancery, the archicancellarius, which title, conferred on the archbishop of Cologne, is for a certain time accompanied by that of bibliothecarius, then, with Lucius II (1144-45), becomes entirely independent and by itself represents the highest authority of the chancery, remaining tied to the cardinalitial dignity.
With Innocent III (1198-1216) another period opens in the history of the pontifical chancery: the new organization, which arrives unchanged, in its broad outlines, down to the pontificate of Leo XIII, finds ample documentation in the continuous series of the "Registers," which indeed begins with 1198. Alongside the chancery are the "secretaries" from whom the litterae secretae are issued, of a private character and without the formalities of the litterae de curia; then the office of vicecancellarius, which previously had a temporary character, becomes stable and with determined functions, until in 1213 it leads to the suppression of the dignity of cancellarius. The direction of the office having remained with the "vice-chancellor," it is no longer entrusted to a cardinal: but in the 14th century, with John XXIII (1316-34), the "vice-chancellor" also rises to that dignity. To the same century belongs also the institution of the "regent," elected by Gregory XI in 1377 to replace the "vice-chancellor" who had remained at the seat of Avignon, and later become a stable office. In this period, which is perhaps the era of greatest activity of the pontifical chancery, it presents itself as thus constituted: a cardinal "vice-chancellor," head of the office; a regent; some protonotarii (corresponding to the ancient notarii) and various minor officials, divided into four categories, corresponding to four different sections: the breviatores, who attend to the drafting of the minutes, the grossatores, who transcribe the document in fair copy (in grossam litteram), the registratores, who carry out the operations of registration, and the bullatores, who affix the seal. There is furthermore a corrector who attends exclusively to the formal revision of the acts.
In the following century, with the generalization of a new type of document, the apostolic "brief (v.)," which presents extrinsic and intrinsic characteristics that totally differentiate it from the "bulls," the necessity is felt of establishing a new office, the Secretariat of Briefs, which absorbs many of the competences of the chancery. The breviatores (or abbreviatori [v.]) while they partly assume the functions of the protonotarii, also acquire new duties of a jurisdictional character that fall outside the sphere of the chancery. Subsequently the minor offices disappear, definitively suppressed by Leo XIII in 1901.
The current organization of the pontifical, or "apostolic," chancery is regulated by the constitution Sapienti consilio of Pius X, who reduced its proportions according to new needs, restoring for its head the ancient name of cancellarius and tying it to the cardinalitial title of St. Lawrence in Damaso.
Canon 260 of the CIC establishes the following regarding the apostolic chancery: "The proper office of the Apostolic Chancery, over which presides the cardinal chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, is this: to dispatch the apostolic letters or bulls for the provision of consistorial benefices and offices, for the establishment of new provinces, dioceses or chapters, and for executing other major business of the Church."
These letters or bulls are not dispatched except by mandate of the Congregations: Consistorial, for the Eastern Church, of Propaganda Fide, etc., or of the Supreme Pontiff; observing in individual cases the terms of the mandate itself.
At the head of the chancery is the cardinal chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, assisted by the regent and by a few officials. Throughout the course of the Middle Ages, episcopal chanceries also frequently drew inspiration from the organization and the rules of the pontifical chancery, even repeating the extrinsic characteristics of the acts: the archiepiscopal diplomas of Benevento offer a typical example of this.