KFLCC Kingdom Law 2nd Ed.

189

CHAMPION

CHANCERY

Intermeddles officiously. Thus every cham perty includes maintenance, but not every maintenance is champerty. See 2 Inst. 208; Stotsenburg v. Marks, 79 Ind. 196; Lytle v. State, 17 Ark. 624. CHAMPION. A person who fights a com bat in his own cause, or in place of another. The person who, in the trial by battel, fought either for the tenant or demandant. 3 Bl. Comm. 339. —Champion of the king or qneen. An ancient officer, whose duty it was to ride arm ed cap-a-pie, into Westminster Hall at the cor onation, while the king was at dinner, and, by the proclamation of a herald, make a challenge "that, if any man shall deny the king's title to the crown, he is there ready to defend it in single combat." The king drank to him, and sent him a gilt cup covered, full of wine, which the champion drank, retaining the cup for his fee. This ceremony, long discontinued, was re vived at the coronation of George IV., but-not afterwards. Wharton. An acci dent; an unexpected, unforeseen, or unin tended consequence of an act; a fortuitous event The opposite of intention, design, or contrivance. There is a wide difference between chance and accident. The one is the intervention of some unlooked-for circumstance to prevent an ex pected result; the other is the uncalculated ef fect of mere luck. The shot discharged at ran dom strikes its object by chance; that which is turned aside from its well-directed aim by some unforeseen circumstance misses its mark by accident. Pure chance consists in the en tire absence of all the means of calculating re sults ; accident, in the unusual prevention of an effect naturally resulting from the means employed. Harless v. U. S., Morris (Iowa) 173. —Chance verdict. One determined by hazard or lot, and not by the deliberate understanding and agreement of the jury. Goodman v. Cody, 1 Wash. T. 335, 34 Am. Rep. 808; Dixon v. Pluns, 98 Cal. 384, 33 Pac. 268, 20 L. R. A. 698. 35 Am. St. Rep. 180; Improvement Co. v. Adams, 1 Colo. App. 250, 28 Pac. 662. In criminal law. A sudden affray. This word is sometimes applied to any kind of homicide by misad venture, but in strictness it is applicable to such killing only as happens in defending one's self. 4 Bl. Comm. 184. In ecclesiastical law. The part of a church in which the communion table stands; it belongs to the rector or the impropriator. 2 Broom & H. Comm. 420. CHANCELLOR. In American law, this Is the name given in some states to the judge (or the presiding judge) of a court of chancery. In England, besides being the designation of the chief judge of the court of chancery, the term is used as the title of several judicial officers attached to bishops or other high dignitaries and to the univer sities. (See infra.) In Scotch practice, it denotes the foreman of an assise or jury. —Chancellor of a cathedral. In English ecclesiastical law. One of the quatuor personw, CHANCE. In criminal law. CHANCE-MEDLEY. CHANCEL.

or four chief dignitaries of the cathedrals of the old foundation. The duties assigned to the office by the statutes of the different chapters vary, but they are chiefly of an educational character, with a special reference to the cul tivation of theology.—Chancellor of a dio cese. In ecclesiastical law, the officer appoint ed to assist a bishop in, matters of law, and to hold his consistory courts for him. 1 Bl. Comm. 382; 2 Steph. Comm. 672.—Chancellor of a university. In English law. The official head of a university. His principal prerogative is to hold a court with jurisdiction over the mem bers of the university, in which court the vice chancellor presides. The office is for the most part honorary.—Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In English law. An officer before whom, or his deputy, the court of the duchy chamber of Lancaster is held. This is a special jurisdiction concerning all manner of equity re lating to lands holden of the king in right of the duchy of Lancaster. Hob. 77; 3 Bl. Comm. 78 —Chancellor of the exchequer. In Eng lish law. A high officer of the crown, who formerly sat in the exchequer court, and, to gether with the regular judges of the court, saw that things were conducted to the king's benefit. In modern times, however, his duties are not of a judicial character, but such as per tain to a minister of state charged with the management of the national revenue and ex penditure —Chancellor of the order of the garter, and other military orders, in England, is an officer who seals the commissions and the mandates of the chapter and assembly of the knights, keeps the register of their proceedings, and delivers their acts under the seal of their order.—Chancellor, the lord high. In Eng land, this is the highest judicial functionary in the kingdom, and superior, in point of preceden cy, to every temporal lord. He is appointed by the delivery of the king's great seal into his custody. He may not be a Roman Catholic. He is a cabinet minister, a privy counsellor, and prolocutor of the house of lords by prescrip tion, (but not necessarily, though usually, a peer of the realm,) and vacates his office with the ministry by which he was appointed. To him belongs the appointment of all justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Being, in the earlier periods of English history, usually an ecclesiastic, (for none else were then capable of an office so conversant in writings,) and pre siding over the royal chapel, he became keeper of the sovereign's conscience, visitor, in right of the crown, of the hospitals and colleges of royal foundation, and patron of all the crown livings under the value of twenty marks per annum in the king's books. He is the general guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics, and has the general superintendence of all charitable uses, and all this, over and above the vast and extensive jurisdiction which he exercises in his judicial capacity in the supreme court of judi cature, of which he is the head. Wharton.— Vice-chancellor. In English law. A judge of the court of chancery, acting as assistant to the lord chancellor, and holding a separate court, from whose judgment an appeal lay to the chancellor. 3 Steph. Comm. 418. CHANCELLOR'S COURTS IN THE TWO UNIVERSITIES. In English law. Courts of local jurisdiction in and for the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge in Eng land. Equity; equitable jurisdic tion; a court of equity; the system of ju risprudence administered in courts of equity. Kenyon v. Kenyon, 3 Utah, 431, 24 Pac. 829; Sullivan v. Thomas, 3 Rich. (S. C.) 531. See COUET OF CHANCEBY. CHANCERY.