The French royal chancery first appears in a rudimentary form during the
Merovingian dynasty. They borrowed from the diplomatic institutions of the late
Roman Empire, and had four officials, usually clerics, called "referendaries" who guarded the king's seal. The documents are very formulaic, probably using the
formulary of Marculf as a source. They used
their own script, which was very messy with many ligatures, and their Latin was of very poor quality. After the Merovingians were overthrown by the
Mayors of the Palace, the chancery began to develop more fully. The
Carolingian chancellor was usually the
Archbishop of Reims. He was a member of the king's council, while the actual business of the chancery was conducted by lesser officials.
Louis the Pious created a new formulary, the
Formulae Imperiales, which was the basis of formularies used in later centuries. They also used a different script, the more legible
Carolingian minuscule. The Carolingian chancery took requests from those who wished to have a charter drawn up, and the king would send
missi to investigate the situation. In the
Capetian period, the chancellor was still the Archbishop of Reims. The chancery itself tended not to write its own charters, but rather confirmed charters that had already been written by the intended recipient. This reflected the relative powerlessness of the Capetian kings, who, unlike their Carolingian predecessors, controlled only the
Ile-de-France. It was not until the 12th century that the chancellor truly became the head of the chancery, rather than the guardian of the king's seal. This chancellor was a member of the
Great Officers of the Crown of France, which developed in the 11th and 12th centuries. Because the chancellor had power over the granting of charters and other benefits, the kings often saw them as a threat to their own authority, and the office sometimes lay dormant for many years.
Philip II abolished the post in 1185, and the chancery remained without an official head for most of the thirteenth and part of the fourteenth century. The head of the chancery in this period took over the guardianship of the seal, and was usually not a cleric. Documents in this period were signed as "
cancellaria vacante" ("with the chancellorship vacant"). When the chancellorship was restored in the fourteenth century, it was held by laymen and became the highest ranking of the Great Officers. In the fourteenth century the rest of the chancery staff consisted of notaries and secretaries. They were appointed by the chancellor and wrote royal letters and other documents that were not already produced by the beneficiaries. The most important official after the chancellor was the
audencier, who presided over the ceremony in which the chancellor affixed the royal seal to a document. The chancery charged a tax to recipients of charters;
Jews were taxed at a higher rate, but royal grants of
alms or other donations were not usually taxed. The Capetian chancery also used a minuscule script, and documents were written in Latin until the thirteenth century, when French also began to be used. The majority of the documents produced by the chancery were
letters patent, which were directed from the king to a single person. They could be letters of thanks, financial transactions, letters of justice and pardon, legitimization of children, recognition of nobility, and many other subjects. Charters authorizing grants of land or settling property disputes are less common. Documents were not registered in an archive until the fourteenth century, and then only rarely, if the document pertained to royal administration. Normally a document was validated by witnesses, including the author, the chancellor, or other nobles; the early Capetians derived their authority from the number of people they could collect to sign a document. Later in the Middle Ages the kingship had regained enough power that the king's seal was considered authoritative enough on its own. ==In Scotland==