ABSTRACT
Conscience, perhaps even more than in the later period, was the hallmark of the medieval Chancery, certainly after a particular point in time. J. L. Barton claims that conscience was first mentioned in connection with Chancery in 1391. Saying that conscience was the hallmark of medieval equity is one thing, giving content to the notion of conscience is quite another. One exception to the absence of evidence of equitable reasoning in medieval courts is the summary report under the caption, conscience, of an Exchequer case from 1453 in Nicholas Statham's Abridgment des libres annals. Elsewhere the discharging of a person's conscience has distinctly legal ramifications. The argument that the medieval Chancellors, as ecclesiastics were influenced by Church law has often been made. Reginald Pecock was, of course, never chancellor, but, like so many medieval chancellors, he was a bishop and he was a privy councillor.
