HANAPER

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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HANAPERAuthored
The Law Mind • 1078 words
Definition
A hanaper was a hamper or basket — typically of wickerwork construction — used in the English Court of Chancery to store writs relating to the business of subjects and their returns. The term carries two related but distinct meanings in legal usage: 1. The physical receptacle itself: the basket in which Chancery writs and their returns were kept and transported. 2. The administrative office organized around that receptacle: the Hanaper Office, a distinct department of the common-law side of the Court of Chancery responsible for receiving, storing, and managing writs of that class. The fees accruing on writs were also kept there, according to Spelman and Du Cange, making the hanaper a financial as well as a documentary repository. The Hanaper Office was headed by the Clerk of the Hanaper, a named officer of Chancery whose duties included the receipt of fees on patents and other instruments passing the Great Seal. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A kind of basket, usually of wickerwork, adapted for packing and carrying articles; a hamper. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A kind of basket, usually of wickerwork, adapted for the packing and carrying of articles; a hamper. Webster's 1913 itself cross-references the legal institution, noting the Hanaper Office as the English Chancery office in which writs and their returns were anciently kept in such a basket. The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow in origin but significant in consequence. Ordinary usage retains only the object — a wicker carrying basket. Legal usage transformed that object into an institutional name: the Hanaper Office was a formal department of one of England's most powerful courts, with its own clerk, fee structure, and statutory regulation. A researcher encountering "hanaper" in a legal source is almost never reading about basketry. ---
Why It Matters in Research
Structural pattern: historical evolution — a common object name absorbed into institutional legal nomenclature, now wholly obsolete in practice but present throughout pre-modern Chancery records. Researchers working in English legal history or equity jurisprudence will encounter hanaper in several distinct contexts, each requiring different handling: Fee records and patent rolls: Because the Hanaper Office collected fees on instruments passing the Great Seal — including letters patent and royal grants — references to hanaper fees appear in fiscal and administrative records well beyond purely judicial sources. A researcher tracing a patent grant or a royal charter may encounter hanaper accounting entries that have nothing to do with litigation. Chancery procedure: The distinction between the Hanaper Office and other Chancery offices (the Petty Bag Office, for instance) matters for understanding how writs were classified and processed. Confusing these offices produces errors in reading procedural histories. Statutory footprint: Bouvier cites 5 & 6 Vict. c. 113 and 10 Ric. II. c. 1 in connection with the hanaper, signaling that the office had a real statutory life across centuries. Researchers should not treat hanaper as purely informal or customary — it was regulated. American sources: The hanaper is an English institution with no American transplant. U.S. legal dictionaries include it for completeness and for the benefit of researchers reading English equity authorities, but it has no operational significance in American law. Anderson's Dictionary entry in the source material appears to have been misassigned (the text concerns habeas corpus jurisdiction), which itself illustrates a trap in relying on historical dictionary excerpts without verification. Obsolescence date: The Chancery reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, culminating in the Judicature Acts, effectively ended the practical operation of the Hanaper Office as a living institution. Sources after the 1870s treat it as historical. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries show strong agreement on the core definition. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Bouvier converge on the same formulation: a hamper for Chancery writs and their returns, with a secondary note (attributed to Spelman and Du Cange) that fees were also stored there. Bouvier adds the statutory citations, which neither Black's edition reproduces, making Bouvier the more useful source for researchers tracing the office's legal basis. The disagreement between "writs kept there" and "fees kept there" is flagged explicitly in both Black's editions ("according to others, the fees accruing on writs, etc., were there kept"). This is not a contradiction so much as an evolution: the physical basket likely held both documents and fee receipts at different periods, and the institutional name outlasted the literal practice. Researchers should treat both functions as historically real rather than choosing one account over the other. Webster's 1913, notably, provides a cleaner gloss on the legal meaning than some legal dictionaries do, directly referencing Blackstone and the Chancery context. This is a case where the general dictionary is a reliable entry point. What the historical sources collectively miss: none of them adequately distinguishes the Hanaper Office from other Chancery departments for a researcher who needs to navigate archival records. The Clerk of the Hanaper entry (referenced but not reproduced in the Bouvier excerpt) would fill part of that gap. ---
Jurisdictional Note
The hanaper is an institution of English law with no American equivalent. It appears in American legal dictionaries solely as a reference tool for reading English equity authorities. Researchers working in jurisdictions that inherited English Chancery practice (including some Commonwealth systems) may encounter vestigial references in older procedural records, but the office itself ceased meaningful operation in the nineteenth century. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Court of Chancery (for the institutional context of the Hanaper Office within Chancery's departmental structure); Clerks and Officers of Court (for the Clerk of the Hanaper as a named office and fee-collecting function). ---
Related Terms
Hanaper Office — the institutional form; the administrative department named for the hanaper Clerk of the Hanaper — the officer responsible for the office and its fee collections Court of Chancery — the parent court within which the Hanaper Office operated Petty Bag Office — a parallel Chancery department; sometimes confused with the Hanaper Office in older sources Great Seal — instruments passing the Great Seal generated the fees collected through the Hanaper Office Letters Patent — a primary category of instrument whose fees passed through the hanaper Writ — the documentary class stored in the hanaper Equity — the broader jurisprudential tradition within which Chanceryand thus the hanaperoperated
HANAPERmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
ternal cause, arising from disorder of the nervous system; delusion. Webster.
HANAPERmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
A hamper or basket in which were kept the writs of the court of chancery relating to the business of a sub- ject, and their returns. 3 Bl. Comm. 49. According to others, the fees accruing on
HANAPERmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
writ of error. It may still issue its own writ of habeas corpus. A circuit court may discharge a person restrained of his liberty in violation of the Constitution, although held on an indictment for an offense against a State.2 Congress has prescribed the jurisdiction of the Federal courts under the writ; but as it has never particularly prescribed the mode of procedure, they have followed in substance the rules of the common law. The legislatures of the States not only provide what courts or officers may issue the writ, but, to a considerable extent, have regulated the practice under it. See EXTRADITION; INDIAN. Habendum. To have; for having. Ηαbendum et tenendum: to have and to hold. The initial, emphatic word in that clause of a deed which follows the granting part. Determines what estate or interest is granted; may lessen, enlarge, explain, or qualify, but not totally contradict or be repugnant to, the estate granted in the premises, q. v. Habere facias possessionem. That you cause to have possession. Habere facias seisinam. That you cause to have seisin. If the plaintiff recovers in any action whereby the seisin or possession of land is awarded him, the writ of execution is an habere facias seisinam, or writ of seisin, of a freehold; or an habere facias possessionem, or writ of possession, of a chattel interest. These are writs commanding the sheriff to give actual possession to the plaintiff of the land recovered. At present, an habere facias possessionem puts into possession of the land a plaintiff who has been successful in an action of ejectment; and the writ of habere facias seisinam is in vogue in some States in connection with the action of dower. Habere facias visum. That you cause to have a view. A writ, and the characteristic phrase in the same, which directed the sheriff to have land viewed by a jury. Habilis. Having: capable, suitable; fit. By the canon law, if the parties are habiles ad matrimonium, it is a good marriage, whatever their ages. A bag or basket, kept in offices of the court of chancery to receive dues paid for the seals of charters, patents, commissions, and writs; then, the exchequer of chancery. Writs issuing out of the ordinary court of chancery (relating to the business of the subject) and the returns thereto were, according to the simplicity of ancient times, originally kept in hanaperio; and others (relating to affairs of the crown) were preserved in a little sack or bag; and thence has arisen the distinction of "hanaper office" and "petty-bag office," both 1 Lyman v. Fiske, 17 Pick. 234 (1835), Shaw, C. J. 2 See Borland v. Nichols, 18 Pa. 43 (1849). 32 Bl. Com. 208. Von Stade v. Arthur, 13 Blatch. 251 (1876). L. L. hanaperium, a large vase; a vessel to keep cups in; hanapus, a cup, bowl. Whence hamper.
HANAPERn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
A kind of basket, usually of wickerwork, and adapted for the packing and carrying of articles; a hamper. Hanaper office, an office of the English court of chancery in which writs relating to the business of the public, and the returns to them, were anciently kept in a hanaper or hamper. Blackstone.
hanapernoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A kind of basket, usually of wickerwork, and adapted for the packing and carrying of articles; a hamper

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