ABSTRACT

This chapter refers to the common view that the early Tudor period was a time of transition for the Chancery and that Christopher St. German was a key figure in this change. St. German identified the common law as at least a partial guide for conscience. Moreover, German preserves an essential role for Chancery in the matter of juridical conscience, he explicitly, in the Little Treatise, defends it as a separate court. It may be, as some commentators have argued, that in spite of his defence of Chancery, St. German undermined Chancery as a distinctive jurisdiction. Indeed, Thomas More's approach to the common law judges appears to acknowledge that conscience could be quite capaciously administered in the common law courts. The chapter illustrates among other things, that conscience in More's mind was associated with the Chancellor's jurisdiction, that jurisdiction might be exercised in the common law courts.