Forms: 3 chancelerie, 4 chauncelrie, chauncellerie, 7 chancellary, 9 chancelry, chancellory, 8– chancellery. Also in F. form chancellerie (see sense 3). [a. OF. chancel(l)erie, f. chancelier CHANCELLOR; cf. late L. and Pr. cancellāria, Sp. cancelaria, It. and Cat. cancelleria: see -ERY. Contracted at an early date to chancelry, CHANCERY; also, partly refashioned as CHANCELLARY.]
1. The office or position of a chancellor.
c. 1300. Beket, 359. Therfore ich ȝulde the up here al clene the chancelerie.
1393. Gower, Conf., II. 191. Thoffice of the chauncellerie Or of the kinges tresorie.
1886. J. Gillow, Hist. Eng. Catholics, II. 380. His locum tenens in the Chancellory.
2. A chancellor’s court, or office, with its officials. [Cf. Ger. kanzelei, kanzlei.]
1803. Syd. Smith, Rev. Catteau’s Danois. The chancelry of Denmark interprets all laws which concern privileges in litigation…. The German chancelry has the same powers and privileges in Sleswick and Holstein.
1876. Daily News, 5 Dec., 3/1. Each governor will have a chancellery, and a council composed of four members.
b. The office or department of a court secretary or notary (with its formalities of drawing up documents, official style of penmanship, etc.).
1683. Temple, Mem., Wks. 1731, I. 441. The Titles in the new Powers should be inserted … according to the usual Stile of the Chancellary of each Court.
1727. T. Jenkins, trans. Father Paul on Benefices (1736), 142. The Commendams contracted too much of this Habit, not altogether commendable, from the Roman chancellery.
1882–3. Schaff, Relig. Encycl., I. 639. Became Scriptor Apostolicus in the papal chancelry in Avignon, 1371.
c. The office attached to an embassy or consulate.
1869. Standard, 4 June, 3/2. He will merely succeed the Clerk of the Chancellery, M. Farine, who has been assisting the United States Minister in the task undertaken by him of protecting the interests of the French residents.
1877. D. M. Wallace, Russia, xxxiii. 560. The chancelleries of the courts were dens of pettifogging rascality.
1881. Daily News, 20 Jan., 3/4. The Chancelleries of the Great Powers consider the Turkish Note expressive of a willingness to make greater concessions.
3. The building or room occupied by the chancellor’s office.
1831. Remembrancer, 251. [Cardinal Riario] employed many of the blocks of travertine … for constructing the chancellery.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, lxvii. Their French rivals shut up their chancellerie.
1884. T. Hughes, in Daily News, 3 March, 6/1. [The bishop] striding along one morning on his way to his chancellery.
1885. T. Mozley, Remin. Towns, &c. I. 86. The friend, looking at him between the bars of his little chancellerie, asked his hotel.
