A chancery or chancellery (Latin: cancellaria) is a medieval writing office, responsible for the production of official documents.
[3] Whether there was a formal chancery office in Anglo-Saxon England prior to the Norman Conquest is a matter of some debate amongst historians.
One office holder in the Antiochene chancery was Walter the Chancellor, who wrote the only early history of the state.
In the Duchy of Normandy, after 1066 a ducal chancery developed, especially under William's sons Robert Curthose and Henry I.
They borrowed from the diplomatic institutions of the late Roman Empire, and had four officials, usually clerics, called "referendaries" who guarded the king's seal.
The Carolingian chancery took requests from those who wished to have a charter drawn up, and the king would send missi to investigate the situation.
Because the chancellor had power over the granting of charters and other benefits, the kings often saw them as a threat to their own authority, and the office sometimes lay dormant for many years.
Philip II abolished the post in 1185, and the chancery remained without an official head for most of the thirteenth and part of the fourteenth century.
When the chancellorship was restored in the fourteenth century, it was held by laymen and became the highest ranking of the Great Officers.
The Capetian chancery also used a minuscule script, and documents were written in Latin until the thirteenth century, when French also began to be used.
[10] The majority of the documents produced by the chancery were letters patent, which were directed from the king to a single person.