Millenaristic Equity. Theological Order and Legal Faith

The essay aims to prospect an original understanding of Equity Jurisdiction at the intersection of Law, Literature and Theology, theoretically based on a critical reassessment of E. Kantorowicz’s and E.L. Santner’s arguments. In this perspective, the Author uncovers the tensional metamorphoses, which ontologically affected and transmuted Equity from Medieval foundations to Renaissance reformed settlement, in order to fulfil a process of mystical secularization. Moving from a deeper appreciation of Chancellor’s figure and institutional role, the new intellectual vision here proposed brings to the light the historical and symbolical relevance of the Chancellor’s two bodies, which mimically reflected the dualities embedded in the normative figure of the King. The main purpose is to demonstrate how Equity Jurisdiction was charged with an eschatological significance and was attracted into millenaristic visions and narratives. Equity definitely constituted the salvific seam between Theological Order and Legal Faith. Meaningful arguments, in order to support the main thesis, comes from Medieval Literature, and especially from the spectacularized allegorical representation enacted by verses of Piers Plowman, where the contending claims of Common Law and Equity are christologically reinterpreted. Other foundative elements emerge from the valorization of the connection between Equity’s strategies and Elizabethan Apocalypticism. The Equity jurisdiction was a powerful device in order to gives voice and expression to the katechontic mission embodied by Queen Elizabeth I. The bond between Sovereignty and Equity was newly attracted into an eschatological plan.