Apostolic Chancellery

The Apostolic Chancery (Latin: Cancellaria Apostolica; also known as the Papal or Roman Chanc(ell)ery) was a dicastery of the Roman Curia. The primary official was the Cardinal Chancellor of Holy Roman Church who was always Cardinal-Priest of the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Damaso.

The principal function of the Chancellor when the office was instituted was to collect money to maintain the Papal armies. Pope Pius VII reformed the office when Emperor Napoleon I of France obviated the need for Papal armies. In the early 20th century the office served to collect money for missionary work. The motu proprio Quo aptius of 27 February 1973 issued by Bl. Pope Paul VI abrogated the Cancellaria Apostolica. Its obligations were transferred to the Secretariat of State.

The Cancellaria Apostolica derived its name "" from civil law and from the Imperial chanceries, and is certainly of very ancient origin in its essence. The primacy of the Roman Pontiff required that the Pope have in his service officials to write and transmit his answers to the numerous petitions for favours and consultations addressed to him. This office, in course of time, underwent numerous transformations.

After Pope Martin V had instituted a large number of offices in the Cancellaria, Pope Sixtus V placed many of them in the class of "vacabili", as they were then named, i. e. venal (a practice also resorted to by secular court, e. g. in France, even under the absolutist King Louis XIV of France). The origin of this institution was as follows: The Pope was often compelled, in defense of the Church, to wage war, to equip expeditions, or at least to give financial assistance to the princes who waged such wars at his exhortation. But the Papal treasury was often insufficient to defray even the expenses of the Papal States. Accordingly, the Popes resorted to the expedient of selling several lucrative offices of the Roman Curia, as a rule to the highest bidder; however, that what was sold was not the office itself, but the receipts of the office, e. g., the taxes for the favours granted through the office. Some offices were sold with the right of succession by the heirs of the purchaser, but this could be done only in the case of an office of minor importance, in the exercise of which no special ability was required. Those offices which entailed grave responsibilities, and which could be filled only by pious and learned men, were sold on the condition that they should revert to the Roman Curia upon the death of the purchaser. An aleatory contract, therefore, was made, the uncertainties being the amount of the income of the office and the length of life of the purchaser. The prices of the offices, especially of the more desirable ones, were considerable: Lorenzo Corsini, afterwards Pope Clement XII, bought the office of Regent of the Cancellaria for 30,000 Roman scudi, a large fortune for those times. The hazard was not necessarily confined to the life of the purchaser; he was free to condition it upon the life of another expressly designated person, the so-called "intestatary". The purchaser was also allowed to change the life hazard from one person to another, providing this was done 40 days before the death of the immediately preceding intestatary.

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