Definition
An abolished office and administrative department of the English Court of Chancery, responsible for handling writs and proceedings in which the Crown had a direct or indirect interest. The Petty Bag Office issued and processed original writs, writs of error, commissions, and other instruments passing under the great seal where royal concern was engaged. It also had jurisdiction over matters involving solicitors and officers of the court itself. The name derives from the small bag (Latin: parva baga) historically used to store the writs managed by the office.
The Petty Bag was a common law side of the Court of Chancery — a distinction that surprises modern researchers, who tend to think of Chancery exclusively as an equity court. Chancery exercised both common law and equitable functions, and the Petty Bag belonged to the former.
The office was abolished by the Court of Chancery Act 1842 and subsequent Victorian reforms consolidating English superior court administration.
Common Confusion
Researchers sometimes treat all Chancery proceedings as equitable, overlooking that Chancery maintained a parallel common law jurisdiction through offices like the Petty Bag. Writs and records originating in the Petty Bag are not equity proceedings and should not be analyzed using equitable doctrine. The confusion is compounded by the fact that post-reform sources often discuss "Chancery" as a purely equitable forum, obscuring the earlier dual character of the court.
Why It Matters in Research
The Petty Bag matters primarily to researchers working in English legal history before the mid-nineteenth century. Several specific traps arise:
First, records generated by the Petty Bag Office — original writs, writs of error directed to common law courts, and royal commissions — are formally Chancery records but substantively common law instruments. Researchers searching Chancery records for equity materials may encounter Petty Bag documents and mischaracterize them. The reverse error also occurs: researchers tracing a writ of error may not think to look in Chancery holdings.
Second, the Petty Bag had supervisory jurisdiction over solicitors practicing in Chancery. Disciplinary proceedings and admissions records for Chancery solicitors before the mid-1800s may appear in Petty Bag materials rather than in the rolls or cause papers more commonly associated with Chancery litigation. Biographical and professional history research on early equity practitioners should account for this.
Third, the Latin designation parva baga appears in older English records and pleading references without gloss. Researchers unfamiliar with the term may fail to recognize it as identifying this specific office rather than a generic archival container.
Fourth, the office's abolition is an important terminus for research: Petty Bag functions were redistributed, not simply eliminated. Understanding where those functions went after 1842 is necessary for tracing procedural continuity across the reform period.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the essential identification: the Petty Bag was an office within the common law jurisdiction of Chancery, named for the bag used to store its writs, and dealing with matters in which the Crown was immediately or mediately concerned. Burrill cites Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 49) as authority, situating the term firmly in the classical English procedural tradition.
Burrill's entry is accurate but minimal. It does not address the scope of the office's solicitor-related jurisdiction, the specific categories of writs it processed, or its abolition — all of which are relevant to researchers encountering the term in historical sources. Wiktionary's definition usefully supplements Burrill by noting the office's role in suits involving solicitors and court officers, a function Burrill omits.
Neither source addresses the important point that the Petty Bag represents Chancery's common law face, a distinction that Blackstone himself treated as significant in explaining the dual character of the court. Researchers relying solely on Burrill may underestimate the procedural complexity the term signals.
Jurisdictional Note
The Petty Bag was an exclusively English institution with no direct counterpart in American or Scottish courts. American colonial and early republic legal systems did not replicate the internal office structure of the English Court of Chancery. References to the Petty Bag in American legal materials are either historical commentary or appear in English-law treatises used as persuasive authority.