In a recent book the authors make the following broad statement: 'The major challenge facing the state during the fourteenth century was not to convince its subjects of the general desirability of a national system of law, but to provide a structure capable of responding to public expectations and delivering both the quantity and the quality of the justice demanded.' The book, Musson and Ormrod's The Evolution of English Justice: Law, Politics and Society in the Fourteenth Century, argues that legal development is the result both of endogenous and exogenous influences. The authors remark that legal historians are especially aware of the former: that law is constantly reshaped 'by the practical needs of those who seek its remedies and the intellectual processes of those who practise it.' The observations in this paper fall largely under this rubric: it will suggest that the English court of chancery, between 1432 and 1443 under the direction of Chancellor John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, was a particularly effective and important institution in English life both because it responded to such 'practical needs', and because it was guided by, if not discernible 'intellectual processes', then certainly by precepts fundamental to a Christian society. Musson and Ormrod's exogenous elements described generally as under the purviewof political historians were certainly at play as well. The very existence of chancery as a prerogative court was a response to the basic requirement of governance to provide effective justice. However, the pursuit of this line of inquiry shall have to wait for another time, and it is worthy of note that the authors rightly warn that the distinction between legal and political interpretations of justice ought not be 'over-drawn'. What, then, did petitioners expect of the court of chancery? What were the mechanics of expectation? That is, was the court accessible? And if so, to whom? How would one even get a hearing? Could one find support for one's petition? And might process drag on, leading to mounting expense and deterioration of circumstances? What was the rationale of expectation? Did one expect a particular jurisprudence? If so, could one even expect to comprehend its elements?

We may begin with the mechanics of expectation. Chancery is known to us almost exclusively through the bills it received.