Inns of Court and Chancery

INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. The inns of court seated in London, Lincoln's inn, Gray's inn, the Inner and Middle Temple, are voluntary societies, unchartered, unincor porated and unendowed. Their early history is very obscure and the date of their respective foundations cannot be precisely deter mined. It is quite clear, however, that they were the successors, if not the direct descendants of the early law schools which flour ished in the city in the 12th and 13th centuries. There was accord ing to tradition a legal institution in Newgate, called Johnstone's inn ; another in Pewter lane and a third in Paternoster row. There was the cathedral school of St. Paul's and St. George's inn in Seacole lane, near the Old Bailey, and there was in all probabil ity a school of some sort attached to the church of St. Mary-le Bow in Cheapside. Throughout the 12th century men learned in the civil and canon law—mostly churchmen—swarmed across the channel for the express purpose of teaching and practising the law. In the reign of Stephen we hear of Roger of Bec lectur ing on the sister laws in the city, a proceeding which the citizens induced the king to prohibit. This is the first hint we get of the struggle between the common lawyers and the church. The civilian lawyers had speedily made themselves masters of the common law, as witness the display of knowledge of English law by Lanfranc in his suit with Odo of Bayeux heard before the Conqueror. Henry II.'s judges, although churchmen, were faith ful to the common law in his struggle with the church, and those practising before them were also churchmen, many of whom, says Coke, "that I may use the words of the record, kept schools of law in the city of London and taught such as resorted to them the laws of the realm, taking their foundation of Magna Carta and Carta de Foresta." In 1164, however, the clergy were forbidden to lecture on natural philosophy and municipal law outside their monasteries, and in 1217 clerks and priests were enjoined not to appear as advocates in the secular courts. In 1234 Henry III. by his writ addressed to the mayor and sheriffs of the city ordered "the suppression of the schools of the laws in the city." What "the laws" were we do not know. The term leges was used to mean the civil and canon law, and also the laws of the realm. It was probably used here to mean the latter, since as part of the policy of the church to attract all judicial business into the ecclesiastical courts, the clergy were, by a bull of Innocent IV. in 1254, prohibited from teaching the common law at all. What immediate effect Henry's order had we do not know, but we do know that from 1234 to the accession of his son, the profession of the law was thrown into confusion. Unqualified and unsuitable persons were practising the law, with the result that even the judges became tainted. These judicial scandals culminated in a commission of inquiry instituted in 1289 by Edward I. on his return from the Holy Land, and the punishment of many of the judges and officials of the courts. This was followed up by a second commission empowered to reform the legal profession, which directed that students "apt and eager" should be brought up from the provinces and placed in proximity to the courts of law situate at Westminster. And by the statute De Attornatis et Apprenticiis the chief justice of the common pleas and his fellow judges were directed to provide a certain number of serjeants and barristers (to use the modern equivalents) who should attend the courts wherever they might be and have exclusive audience therein. We may confidently assume from a case in the Year Book of 1292 that prior to 1289 there existed in the city some society charged with the duty of educating students for the legal profes sion and granting degrees which entitled them to plead in the courts. We may also assume that this society or some similiar body existed even a century earlier, since in the reign of Henry II. we hear of lawyers styled `masters,' a title which survives in the masters of the bench of an inn of court. This society then, or perhaps group of societies, was the law faculty, and the practis ing lawyers were the masters of the faculty, just as in any other mediaeval gild. For the inns of court and chancery, like the col leges and halls of Oxford and Cambridge, are children of the gild. Under this system no one could become a master unless he had sat at the feet of some duly qualified master and until by actual performance of the duties of his profession he had proved to the satisfaction of the masters of the faculty assembled in public his right to be included among them. Thus, just as in the universities students would flock round a well-known professor in some faculty and form part of his household, so in London law students became apprentices of a master of the law faculty—a judge, a serjeant at-law, or it may be only an apprentice-at-law—and live in his private house or inn, together with his officials and clerks. When the exodus of the lawyers from the city took place we do not know, but we do know that Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, one of Edward's most trusted ministers, purchased a house in Shoe lane from the Black Friars in 1286. He sat as a royal justice for the trials of the judges and other officials in 1289-92, and apart from these duties transacted a vast amount of other legal business, which, after his death in 1311, continued to be conducted in this house by his son-in-law, the earl of Lancaster. The latter died on the scaffold in 1322 and upon the marriage of his widow with Lestrange, the property passed to her husband's family. Lincoln's Inn.—According to Dugdale there was a tradition current amongst the ancient of Lincoln's inn that the earl of Lincoln, "about the beginning of Edward II.'s reign, being a person well affected to the knowledge of the law, first brought in the professors of that honourable and necessary study to settle in this place," i.e., in the present Lincoln's inn. This, however, was at that time the town house of the bishop of Chichester, and con tinued to be occupied by the bishops of that see until 1442. Williams thinks that the earl's house in Shoe lane constituted the original Lincoln's inn, whilst Baildon maintains that de Lacy brought his company of lawyers to settle in Thavie's inn on the opposite side of the lane, west of St. Andrew's church. This house became the property of John Davy, a chancery clerk, a man of some prominence in Holborn from 135o till his death in 1387. It is this property which became an inn of chancery and was pur chased by Lincoln's inn in 155o. This house has been confused with one adjoining, belonging to another John Davy, an armourer, upon whose death it was sold in 13 5o to Sir John de Houton, a baron of the Exchequer, and again in 1366 to two clerks in the chancery, which suggests that this house also became a legal hostel. Whether any or which of these houses was the original Lincoln's inn it is impossible to say, but it has been established by G. T. Tur ner and Williams that the second Lincoln's inn was situated east of Chancery lane. Between the years 1331 and 1334, Thomas de Lin coln, the king's serjeant, son of Thomas de Lincoln, acquired there properties lying between Staple inn and the Rolls, which after passing through other hands—evidently acting as trustees—be came the property of the abbot and convent of Malmesbury. In letters patent dated Oct. 6, 138o, it is described as totem hos picium vocatum Lyncolns Ynne, and in 1399 the convent was re ceiving L8 a year rent which, early in the 15th century, was re duced to 4os. on account of the ruinous condition of the premises. This accounts for the removal of the society after the death of Bishop Read in 1415 to his mansion on the other side of the lane.

The earliest records of Lincoln's inn, the Black Books, com mence in 1422. The item under date 1437-38 of 4os. for the rent of "Lyncollysyn" is obviously for the old premises of Thomas de Lincoln. The rent of the new premises to the bishop of Chi chester at this period was ten marks, which sum continued to be paid until the freehold was conveyed to Richard Kingsmill and his fellow benchers by Edward Suliard in 158o for the sum of L5 20. By this time the title of "hospicium" had been dropped and the title was now once more "the society of Lincoln inn." All were "fellows" (socii) of the "fellowship" (societas), although the term "company" was also used to describe the whole body. The control of the society was vested in the council, which con sisted of the masters of the bench. Next in rank came the utter barristers, those who had been called to the bar, and the inner barristers or students, so called because at the moots held in the hall of the inn the former sat on the outermost part of the form which represented the bar of the court, and the latter sat inside and between them. Formerly attorneys and solicitors also might be members of the inn. The chief officials were the four governors, who ceased to be elected in 1574 and whose place was taken by the treasurer. The other officers were the autumn and Lent readers, the dean of the chapel, the keeper of the Black Books, the marshal, the pensioner, originally the chief official, the butler for Christmas, the steward for Christmas, the master of the revels, the chief butler, the escheator, the chaplain and the servants, the chief of whom was the manciple, mentioned in the city archives of 1417. It is interesting to note that Sir Thomas More's grandfather was chief butler prior to his call in 147o.

He became autumn reader in 1489. The chief butler at this period acted rather as clerk to the council than as butler in the modern sense. He was clearly an educated man. The bishop of Chiches ter's palace and the chapels of Our Lady and of St. Richard sufficed for the needs of the society for nearly a century. The Bishop's Hall was pulled down in 1491 and the present Old Hall erected in its place in 1506. This has recently been restored to its former state. When this proved insufficient for the growing membership the present New Hall was built in 1843. The present chapel, constructed by Inigo Jones, was completed in 1623. Thavie's inn was sold by the benchers in 1769 and thus erased as a legal institution. The other inn of chancery attached to Lin coln's inn, Furnival's inn, dates from about 1406. In 1817, with the exception of the hall, it was rebuilt. This building, abutting upon Holborn, has since been pulled down, and upon its site arose the present office of the Prudential Insurance Society, the ancient hall being again preserved. Here Charles Dickens was living when the Pickwick Papers were published.

Gray's Inn.

The site of Gray's inn formed part of the manor of Portpoole, which became the property of Richard de Chygwell in 1280. This site passed in 1294 to the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, who let it to Reginald de Grey, chief justice of Chester and first Lord Grey of Wilton. There is little doubt that the judge lived here with his clerks and other officers of his court and law students. The Greys had for a century been connected as officials with both the court of exchequer and the chancery. Gray's inn continued in the de Grey family till the conveyance of the manor of Portpoole by Lord Grey of Wilton to Hugh Denys and Mary his wife and other feoffees, who in 1503 sold the manor to the prior and convent of the charter house at Sheen, from whom the benchers held the inn until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 when the rent became due to the Crown. In 1733 the benchers acquired the freehold. The existing records of the inn only commence with the year 1569, but from other evidence there is every reason to believe that so far from Gray's inn being the youngest member of the four inns of court, it is at least of equal antiquity to that of any other inn. In 1 3 7o it was described as hospicium, from which we are justified in assuming that prior to this date it was in the occupation of a jegal society. We have a list of readers commencing with John Markham 1391 and, out of chronological order, William Skipwith 1355, who was already a serjeant. From a Year Book of Edward III. we learn that "Ingleby having taken an exception at bar, Willby and Skipwith answered that that was never an exception taken in that place, though they had often heard it entre les apprentices en hostelles." This would mean that Gray's inn was in existence as a legal society at least as early as 133o and it is highly probable that the description in the Harleian ms. of Ralph Andrew as a bencher of "Grayes Inne" in 1311 is correct. The constitution and officers of the inn are similar to those of the other inns. When the records open governors had ceased to be elected. The control of the inn was vested in the masters of the bench. The office of pensioner was abolished in 163o, but the name survives in the Pension Book of Gray's Inn and in the old and new pension chambers, where the masters of the bench meet for the discussion and transaction of the business of the society and for relaxation. Of the servants of the inn the chief were, in 157o, the steward, the master butler, the priest and the master cook. After the Reformation, the priest gave way to the chaplain, and in 1631 the order of precedence was "the preacher, the chaplain, the steward, the master butler, the master cook, to be allowed such commons as gentlemen : the second butler, the third butler, the fourth butler, the second cooke, the preacher's man, the steward's man, one washpot, two turne broches to be allowed such commons as yeomen are." In addition were the chapel clerk, the laundress, the gardener and the cleaners of the sewers and courts. Whether any of the old hall of the de Greys remains cannot be determined. We know that it was rebuilt or re-edifyed under the supervision of Nicholas Bacon and Gilbert Gerard in 1556. Restored in recent years to its original state it is a particularly fine specimen of Tudor architecture and may be compared with the Middle Temple hall, which it much resembles, although on a smaller scale. The oak screen is said to have been presented by Elizabeth. The chapel was certainly in existence prior to 1315, when John de Grey made provision for a chaplain. It was reconstructed or re-edifyed in 1615 and finally restored in 1893. We hear first of the library in i 555. It was housed in a chamber on the first floor of No. i Gray's inn square, over which Francis Bacon, afterwards lord chancellor, was allowed to extend his adjoining chambers. In 1788 the library was moved to the old duchy office, east of the hall, and in 1884 No. 8 South square, where Macaulay once had chambers, was swept away for an extension. To make room for a further extension No. 7 has now disappeared also. The oldest chambers in the inn are those erected in Gray's inn place in 1696.

The inns of chancery affiliated to Gray's inn were Staple inn and Barnard's inn. The former was an inn of chancery in the reign of Henry V., and is probably of far earlier date, since here was held the court of the Staple, where the judges sat on woolsacks. The inn is now the property of the Actuaries Society. Barnard's inn, named after Lionel Barnard who leased it from the dean of Lincoln, became an inn of chancery at least before 1451, when we are told by Stow that as a result of "a tumult to-night the gentlemen of the inns of court and chancery and the citizens . . . the principals of Clifford's inn, Furnival's inn and Bar nard's inn were sent prisoners to Hartford castle." Its hall was already in existence at this date. The inn is now the property of the Mercer's company and used as a school.

The Inner and Middle Temples,

so far as their history can be traced, have always been separate societies. The first mention of the Middle Temple as a distinct society occurs in a will dated 1404, and of the Temple as an inn of court in the Poston Letters, where, under date Nov. 1440, the Inner Temple is spoken of as a college, as is also subsequently the Middle Temple. The Temple had been the seat in England of the Knights Templars, on whose suppression in 1312 it passed with other of their possessions to the Crown, and after an interval of some years to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. It now appears that 13 houses built by Roger Blom, formerly nuncius of the Templars, in the churchyard, north of the church, were let to certain professors of the common law not later than 1326. Notwithstanding the de struction of the muniments of the Temple by fire or by popular commotion, sufficient testimony is attainable to show that in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. the Temple had become the residence of the legal communities which have since maintained there a permanent footing. The two societies continued as tenants to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John until the dissolution of the order in 1539; they then became the lessees of the Crown, and so remained until 1609, when James I. made a grant by letters patent of the premises in perpetuity to the benchers of the respective societies on a yearly payment by each of f I o, a payment bought up in the reign of Charles II. In this grant the two inns are de scribed as "the Inner and the Middle Temple or New Temple," and as "being two out of those four colleges the most famous of all Europe" for the study of the law. Excepting the church and the priests' hall at the west end of the hall, nothing remains of the edifices belonging to the Knights Templars, the present buildings having been almost wholly erected since the reign of Queen Eliza beth or since the Great Fire, in which the major part of the Inner Temple perished. The church has been in the joint occupation of the Inner and Middle Temple from time immemorial—the former taking the southern and the latter the northern half. The round portion of the church was consecrated in 1185, the nave or choir in 1 240. It is the largest and most complete of the four remaining round churches in England, and is built on the plan of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Narrowly escaping the ravages of the fire of 1666, this beautiful building is one of the most per fect specimens of early Gothic architecture in England. In former times the lawyers awaited their clients for consultation in the round church, as similarly the serjeants-at-law were accustomed to resort to St. Paul's cathedral, where each serjeant had a pillar assigned him. The constitution of both societies is similar to those of the other inns, but the meetings of the benchers are in both styled a "parliament," which is further evidence of their antiquity.

The Inner Temple, comprehending a hall, parliament chamber, library and other buildings, occupies the site of the ancient man sion of the Knights Templars, which has from time to time been more or less rebuilt and extended, the present handsome range of buildings, including a new dining hall, being completed in 1870. The library owes its existence to William Petyt, keeper of the Tower Records in the time of Queen Anne, who was also a bene factor to the library of the Middle Temple. The greatest addition by gift was made by the Baron F. Maseres in 1825. Of the inns of chancery belonging to the Inner Temple Clifford's inn was an ciently the town residence of the Barons Clifford, and was demised in 1345 to a body of students of the law. It was the most impor tant of the inns of chancery, and numbered among its members Coke and Selden. At its dinners a table was specially set aside for the "Kentish Mess," though it is not clear what connection there was between the inn and the county of Kent. It was governed by a principal and 12 rulers. Clement's inn was an inn of chancery before the reign of Edward IV., taking its name from the parish church of St. Clement Danes, to which it had formerly belonged. Clement's inn was the inn of Shakespeare's Master Shallow, and was the Shepherd's inn of Thackeray's Pendennis. The buildings of Clifford's inn survive (1928), but of Clement's inn there are left but a few fragments.

The Middle Temple possesses in its hall one of the most stately of existing Elizabethan buildings. Commenced in 1562, under the auspices of Edmund Plowden, then treasurer, it was not completed until 1572, the richly carved screen at the east end in the style of the Renaissance being erected in 1575. The hall, which has been preserved unaltered, has been the scene of numerous historic inci dents, notably the entertainments given within its walls to regal and other personages from Queen Elizabeth downwards. The library, which contains about 70,00o volumes, dates from 1641, when Robert Ashley, a member of the society, bequeathed his col lection of books in all classes of literature to the inn, together with a large sum of money; other benefactors were Ashmole (the an tiquary), William Petyt (a benefactor of the Inner Temple) and Lord Stowell. From 1711 to 1826 the library was greatly neg lected; and many of the most scarce and valuable books were lost. The present handsome library building, which stands apart from the hall, was completed in 1861, the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) attending the inauguration ceremony on Oct. 31 of that year, and becoming a member and bencher of the society on the occasion. He afterwards held the office of treasurer (1882) . The mss. in the collection are few and of no special value. In civil, canon and international law, as also in divinity and ecclesiastical history, the library is very rich; it contains also some curious works on witchcraft and demonology. There was but one inn of chancery connected with the Middle Temple, that of New inn, which, according to Dugdale, was formed by a society of students previously settled at St. George's inn, situated near St. Sepulchre's church without Newgate; but the date of this transfer is not known. The buildings have now been pulled down.

The King's Inns, Dublin, the legal school in Ireland, corre sponds closely to the English inns of court, and is in many respects in unison with them in its regulations with regard to the admission of students into the society, and to the degree of barrister-at-law, as also in the scope of the examinations enforced. Formerly it was necessary to keep a number of terms at one of the inns in Lon don—the stipulation dating as far back as (33 Henry VIII. c. 3). Down to 1866 the course of education pursued at the King's inns differed from the English inns of court in that candi dates for admission to the legal profession as attorneys and solici tors carried on their studies with those studying for the higher grade of the bar in the same building under a professor specially appointed for this purpose—herein following the usage anciently prevailing in the inns of chancery in London. This arrangement was put an end to by the Attorneys and Solicitors Act (Ireland) 1866. The origin of the King's inns may be traced to the reign of Edward I., when a legal society designated Collett's inn was estab lished without the walls of the city ; it was destroyed by an insur rectionary band. In the reign of Edward III. Sir Robert Preston, chief baron of the Exchequer, gave up his residence within the city to the legal body, which then took the name of Preston's inn. In 1542 the land and buildings known as Preston's inn were restored to the family of the original donor, and in the same year Henry VIII. granted the monastery of Friars Preachers for the use of the professors of the law in Ireland. The legal body removed to the new site, and thenceforward were known by the name of the King's inns. Possession of this property having been resumed by the Government in 1742, and the present Four Courts erected thereon, a plot of ground at the top of Henrietta street was pur chased by the society, and the existing hall built in the year 1800. The library, numbering over 50,000 volumes, with a few mss., is housed in buildings specially provided in the year 1831, and is open, not only to the members of the society, but also to strangers. The collection comprises all kinds of literature. It is based prin cipally upon a purchase made in 1787 of the large and valuable library of Justice Robinson, and is maintained chiefly by an annual payment made from the Central Fund of the Irish Free State in substitution for the annual payment formerly made from the Consolidated Fund to the society in lieu of the right to receive copyright works which was conferred by an Act of 1801, but abrogated in 1836.

In discipline and professional etiquette the members of the bar in Ireland differ little from their English brethren. The same style of costume is enforced, the same gradations of rank—attorney general, solicitor-general, king's counsel and ordinary barristers— being found. There are also serjeants-at-law limited, however, to three in number, and designated 1st, 2nd and 3rd serjeant. The King's inns do not provide chambers for business purposes ; there is consequently no aggregation of counsel in certain localities, as is the case in London in the inns of court and their immediate vicinity.

The corporation known as the

Faculty of Advocates in Edin burgh corresponds with the inns of court in London and the King's inns in Dublin (see ADVOCATES, FACULTY OF).

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-W.

Dugdale, Origines juridicales (3rd ed., 1684) and Bibliography.-W. Dugdale, Origines juridicales (3rd ed., 1684) and History and Antiquities of the Four Inns of Court, etc. (2nd ed., 1780) ; W. Downing, Constitution, Customs and Usages of the Middle Temple (1739, printed 1896) ; Stow, Survey of London and West minster, by Strype • J. Nichols, Progresses of Elizabeth and James I. (4 vols., 1788-1821) ; Herbert, Antiquities of the Inns of Court (1804) ; Lane, Student's Guide through Lincoln's Inn (2nd ed., 1805) ; Duhigg, History of the King's Inns in Ireland (18o6) ; Fort escue, De laudibus legum Angliae, by A. Amos (1825) ; Foss, Judges of England (9 vols., 1848-64) ; Pearce, History of the Inns of Court (1848) ; Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Inns of Court and Chancery, 1855 ; Spilsbury, Lincoln's Inn, with an Account of the Library (2nd ed., 1873) ; Mackay, Practice of the Court of Session (1879) ; Douthwaite, Gray's Inn, its History and Associations (1886) ; A Calendar of Inner Temple Records, ed. F. A. Inderwick (3 vols., 1896 etc.) ; The Records of Lincoln's Inn, ed. T. Douglas Walker (4 vols., 1897-1902) ; Fletcher, The Pension Book of Gray's Inn (19o1) ; H. H. L. Bellot, The Inner and Middle Temple (1902), The Temple (3rd ed., 1925), Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn (1925) ; Middle Temple Records, ed. C. H. Hopwood (3 vols., 1904-05) ; E. Williams, Staple Inn (1906), Early Holborn and the Legal Quarter of London (2 vols., 192 7) ; A. R. Ingpen, Master Worsley's Book (1910), The Middle Temple Bench Book (1912) ; J. B. Williamson, History of the Temple • C. WE.; H. H. L. B.)