“Court of Star-Chamber (_camera stellata_), a famous, or rather infamous
English tribunal, said to have been so called, either from a Saxon
word, signifying to _steer_ or govern; or for its punishing the _crimen
stellionatus_, or cosenage; or because the room wherein it sat――the old
council-chamber of the palace of Westminster (Lamb. 148), which is now
converted into the lottery-office, and forms the eastern side of the
new palace-yard――was full of windows; or (to which Sir Edward Coke,
4 Inst. 66, accedes), because _haply_ the roof thereof was at the first
garnished with gilded _stars_. As all these are merely conjectures (for
no stars are now in the roof, nor are any said to have remained there
so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth), it may be allowable to propose
another conjectural etymology, as plausible, perhaps, as any of them. It
is well known that, before the banishment of the Jews under Edward I.,
their contracts and obligations were denominated in our ancient records
_starra_, or _starrs_, from a corruption of the Hebrew word _shetar_,
a covenant. These _starrs_, by an ordinance of Richard the First,
preserved by Hoveden, were commanded to be enrolled and deposited
in chests, under three keys, in certain places; one, and the most
considerable, of which was in the king’s exchequer at Westminster;
and no starr was allowed to be valid, unless it were found in some
of the said repositories. The room at the exchequer, where the
chests containing these starrs were kept, was probably called the
_star-chamber_, and when the Jews were expelled the kingdom, was applied
to the use of the king’s council, sitting in their judicial capacity. To
confirm this, the first time the star-chamber is mentioned in any record,
it is said to have been situated near the receipt of the exchequer at
Westminster (the king’s council, his chancellor, treasurer, justices,
and other sages, were assembled _en la chaumber des esteilles presta
resceipt at Westminster, Clause 41, Edw. III. m. 13_). For in process of
time, when the meaning of the Jewish _starrs_ were forgotten, the word
_star-chamber_ was naturally rendered in law French, _la chaumbre des
esteilles_, and in law Latin, _camera stellata_, which continued to be
the style in Latin till the dissolution of that court.”――_Encyclopædia
Britannica._