The Development of Principles in Equity in the Seventeenth Century *

This chapter documents how, in the course of the seventeenth century, the Court of Chancery underwent a paradigm shift. It shifts from deciding cases using relatively unformed criteria of conscience, to deciding them by reference to articulated principles and rules. English legal history is the product not only of events in the court system but also of events in English history, indeed sometimes European history, that happened outside the court system. About one hundred years after the Norman Conquest, Henry II set about establishing some royal courts that were open to any of his subjects. Part of the justification for doing so was that the King claimed to be the fount of all justice. The English Reformation in the 1530s sowed seeds that would later influence the development of Chancery. The Chancery's procedure for conducting litigation derived from the canon law.