at first in the hands of freedmen and slaves. The emperor Claudius tentatively entrusted certain posts connected with these to the equites; in the time of Hadrian this became the regular custom. Thus a civil career was open to the equites without the obligation of preliminary military service, and the emperor was freed from the pernicious influence of freedmen. After the reign of Marcus Aurelius (according to Mommsen) the equites were divided into: (a) viri eminentissimi, the prefects of the praetorian guard; (b) viri perfectissimi, the other prefects and the heads of the financial and secretarial departments; (c) viri egregii, first mentioned in the reign of Antoninus Pius, a title by right of the procurators generally.
Under the empire the power of the equites was at its highest in the time of Diocletian; in consequence of the transference of the capital to Constantinople, they sank to the position of a mere city guard, under the control of the prefect of the watch. Their history may be said to end with the reign of Constantine the Great.
Mention may also be made of the equites singulares Augusti. The body-guard of Augustus, consisting of foreign soldiers (chiefly Germans and Batavians), abolished by Galba, was revived from the time of Trajan or Hadrian under the above title. It was chiefly recruited from the pick of the provincial cavalry, but contained some Roman citizens. It formed the imperial “Swiss guard,” and never left the city except to accompany the emperor. In the time of Severus, these equites were divided into two corps, each of which had its separate quarters, and was commanded by a tribune under the orders of the prefect of the praetorian guard. They were subsequently replaced by the protectores Augusti.
See further article Rome: History; also T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, iii.; J. N. Madvig, Die Verfassung des römischen Staates, i.; R. Cagnat in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, where full references to ancient authorities are given in the footnotes; A. S. Wilkins in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 1891); E. Belot, Histoire des chevaliers romains (1866–1873); H. O. Hirschfeld, Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der römischen Verwaltungsgeschichte (Berlin, 1877); E. Herzog, Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung (Leipzig, 1884–1891); A. H. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. (1901); A. H. J. Greenidge, History of Rome, i. (1904); J. B. Bury, The Student’s Roman Empire (1893); T. M. Taylor, Political and Constitutional History of Rome (1899). For a concise summary of different views of the sex suffragia see A. Bouché-Leclercq’s Manuel des antiquités romaines, quoted in Daremberg and Saglio; and on the equites singulares, T. Mommsen in Hermes, xvi. (1881), p. 458. (J. H. F.)
EQUITY (Lat. aequitas), a term which in its most general sense
means equality or justice; in its most technical sense it means a
system of law or a body of connected legal principles, which have
superseded or supplemented the common law on the ground of
their intrinsic superiority. Aristotle (Ethics, bk. v. c. 10) defines
equity as a better sort of justice, which corrects legal justice
where the latter errs through being expressed in a universal form
and not taking account of particular cases. When the law speaks
universally, and something happens which is not according to
the common course of events, it is right that the law should be
modified in its application to that particular case, as the lawgiver
himself would have done, if the case had been present to his
mind. Accordingly the equitable man (ἐπιεικής) is he who
does not push the law to its extreme, but, having legal justice on
his side, is disposed to make allowances. Equity as thus described
would correspond rather to the judicial discretion which modifies
the administration of the law than to the antagonistic system
which claims to supersede the law.
The part played by equity in the development of law is admirably illustrated in the well-known work of Sir Henry Maine on Ancient Law. Positive law, at least in progressive societies, is constantly tending to fall behind public opinion, and the expedients adopted for bringing it into harmony therewith are three, viz. legal fictions, equity and statutory legislation. Equity here is defined to mean “any body of rules existing by the side of the original civil law, founded on distinct principles, and claiming incidentally to supersede the civil law in virtue of a superior sanctity inherent in those principles.” It is thus different from legal fiction, by which a new rule is introduced surreptitiously, and under the pretence that no change has been made in the law, and from statutory legislation, in which the obligatory force of the rule is not supposed to depend upon its intrinsic fitness. The source of Roman equity was the fertile theory of natural law, or the law common to all nations. Even in the Institutes of Justinian the distinction is carefully drawn in the laws of a country between those which are peculiar to itself and those which natural reason appoints for all mankind. The connexion in Roman law between the ideas of equity, nature, natural law and the law common to all nations, and the influence of the Stoical philosophy on their development, are fully discussed in the third chapter of the work we have referred to. The agency by which these principles were introduced was the edicts of the praetor, an annual proclamation setting forth the manner in which the magistrate intended to administer the law during his year of office. Each successive praetor adopted the edict of his predecessor, and added new equitable rules of his own, until the further growth of the irregular code was stopped by the praetor Salvius Julianus in the reign of Hadrian.
The place of the praetor was occupied in English jurisprudence by the lord high chancellor. The real beginning of English equity is to be found in the custom of handing over to that officer, for adjudication, the complaints which were addressed to the king, praying for remedies beyond the reach of the common law. Over and above the authority delegated to the ordinary councils or courts, a reserve of judicial power was believed to reside in the king, which was invoked as of grace by the suitors who could not obtain relief from any inferior tribunal. To the chancellor, as already the head of the judicial system, these petitions were referred, although he was not at first the only officer through whom the prerogative of grace was administered. In the reign of Edward III. the equitable jurisdiction of the court appears to have been established. Its constitutional origin was analogous to that of the star chamber and the court of requests. The latter, in fact, was a minor court of equity attached to the lord privy seal as the court of chancery was to the chancellor. The successful assumption of extraordinary or equitable jurisdiction by the chancellor caused similar pretensions to be made by other officers and courts. “Not only the court of exchequer, whose functions were in a peculiar manner connected with royal authority, but the counties palatine of Chester, Lancaster and Durham, the court of great session in Wales, the universities, the city of London, the Cinque Ports and other places silently assumed extraordinary jurisdiction similar to that exercised in the court of chancery.” Even private persons, lords and ladies, affected to establish in their honours courts of equity.
English equity has one marked historical peculiarity, viz. that it established itself in a set of independent tribunals which remained in standing contrast to the ordinary courts for many hundred years. In Roman law the judge gave the preference to the equitable rule; in English law the equitable rule was enforced by a distinct set of judges. One cause of this separation was the rigid adherence to precedent on the part of the common law courts. Another was the jealousy prevailing in England against the principles of the Roman law on which English equity to a large extent was founded.
When a case of prerogative was referred to the chancellor in the reign of Edward III., he was required to grant such remedy as should be consonant to honesty (honestas). And honesty, conscience and equity were said to be the fundamental principles of the court. The early chancellors were ecclesiastics, and under their influence not only moral principles, where these were not regarded by the common law, but also the equitable principles of the Roman law were introduced into English jurisprudence. Between this point and the time when equity became settled as a portion of the legal system, having fixed principles of its own, various views of its nature seem to have prevailed. For a long time it was thought that precedents could have no place in equity, inasmuch as it professed in each case to do that which was just; and we find this view maintained by common lawyers after it had been abandoned by the professors of equity themselves. G. Spence, in his book on the Equitable Jurisdiction of
