Apostolic Chancery

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

The principal function of the Chancellor when the position was created was to collect money to maintain the papal armies. Pope Pius VII reformed the office when Napoleon obviated the need for papal armies. In the early 20th century the office had the duties to collect money for missionary work. The office was abolished by the motu proprio Quo aptius of 27 February 1973 issued by Pope Paul VI. Its functions were transferred to the Secretariat of State.

It takes 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 made it necessary that the Pope should have in his service officers to write and to transmit his answers to the numerous petitions for favours and to the numerous consultations addressed to him. This office, in course of time, underwent many transformations, too many to treat in full.

After Pope Martin V had instituted a large number of offices in the Chancery, Pope Sixtus V placed many of them in the class of vacabili, as they were then called, i.e. venal (a practice also resorted to by secular court, e.g. in France even under the absolutist Louis XIV of France). The origin of this institution was as follows: The pope was often compelled, in defence of Christendom, to wage war, to fit out expeditions, or at least to give financial assistance to the princes who waged such wars at his exhortation. But the pontifical treasury was often without the means to defray even the expenses of the Pontifical States, so in order to raise funds. Accordingly, the popes resorted to the expedient of selling several lucrative offices of the 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 in question. 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 Curia at 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 Clement XII, bought the office of regent of the Chancery 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 establish it upon the life of another expressly designated person, the so-called the intestatary. The purchaser was also allowed to change the life hazard from one person to another, providing this were done forty days before the death of the last preceding intestatary.

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