CHANCERY, COURT OF EQUITY - The name of a court exercising jurisdiction at law, but mainly in equity.

It is not easy to determine how courts of equity originally obtained the jurisdiction they now exercise. Their authority, and the extent of it, have been subjects of much question, but time has firmly established them; and the limits of their jurisdiction seem to be in a great degree fixed and ascertained.

The judge of the court of chancery, often called a court of equity, bears the title of chancellor. The equity jurisdiction in England is vested, principally, in the high court of chancery. This court is distinct from courts of law. American courts of equity are, in some instances, distinct from those of law; in others, the same tribunals exercise the jurisdiction both of courts of law and equity though their forms of proceeding are different in their two capacities. The Supreme Court of the United States and the circuit courts are invested with general equity powers and act either as courts of law or equity, according to the form of the process and the subject of adjudication. In some of the states, as New York, Virginia, and South Carolina, the equity court is a distinct tribunal, having its appropriate judge, or chancellor, and officers. In most of the states, the two jurisdictions centre in the same judicial officers, as in the courts of the United States; and the extent of equity jurisdiction and proceedings is very various in the different states, being very ample in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, and more restricted in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. But the salutary influence of these powers on the judicial administration generally, by the adaptation of chancery forms and modes of proceeding to many cases in which a court of law affords but an imperfect remedy, or no remedy at all, is producing a gradual extension of them in those states where they