Page "Equity (law)" Paragraph 4

Equity was developed two or three hundred years after common law as a system to resolve disputes where damages are not a suitable remedy and to introduce fairness into the legal system.

The distinction between " law " and " equity " is an accident of history.

The law courts or " courts of law " were the courts in England that enforced the king's laws in medieval times.

Here the King's Judges, educated in law rather than theology, administered the universal law of the realm.

This body of law evolved on the basis of previously set precedent into what is recognised as the Common law of England.

However, if changes were not quick enough, or if decisions by the judges were regarded as unfair, litigants could still appeal directly to the King, who, as the sovereign, was seen as the ' fount of justice ' and responsible for the just treatment of his subjects.

Such filings were usually phrased in terms of throwing oneself upon the king's mercy or conscience.

Eventually, the king began to regularly delegate the function of resolving such petitions to the Chancellor, an important member of the King's Council.

The early Chancellors were often clergymen or nobles, acting as the King's confessor and thereby literally as keeper of the King's conscience.

As a result of their theological and clerical training, Chancellors were well versed in the Latin and French languages as well as in classical Roman civil and canon law, which heavily influenced equity.

Soon the Chancery, the Crown's secretarial department, began to resemble a judicial body and became known as the " Court of Chancery ".