Upon the calling of every parliament, the judges and serjeants are summoned by writ to give their Their principal duty appears to have been to assist the lords in the trials of petitions. (' Rot. Peri.' passim.) The writ of summons issues to the judges, not as judges, but as serjeants; and if a baron of the Exchequer be not a serjeant, as was formerly often, and still may be, the case, he is not summoned. No earjeanta have been required to attend of lett, years, except judges and queen's serjeants, but formerly other serjeants were also summoned.
Whilst the Aula Regis constituted one court, a second class of advocates was little needed; and upon that court being afterwards divided into different sections or branches, no inconvenience appftrs to have been felt, as all the different sections of the court equally followed the person of the king. But when, in the reign of Edward I., the regulation for holding common pleas, that is, all ciril actions, in some certain place to be appointed by the crown, was put in force, parties who had business in the court of King's Bench, the jurisdiction of which, except occasionally as a court of appeal, was then almost con fined to criminal matters, or in the court of Exchequer, the jurisdiction of which related to matters of revenue, or in. the court of Chancery, were put to inconvenience for want of advocates, as often as the king, whoa° progresses these courts still followed, happened to be distant from the place (usually Westminster .Hall, and seldom elsewhere, after the reign of Edward HI.) at which the court of Common Pleas eat. To remedy this inconvenience, and at the same time to relieve parties from the burdensome duty of appearing in person in the court of Common Pleas, an ordinance was made in Parliament, in 1292, by Edward I., by which the king directed the selection of a number (fixed provisionally at 140) from the higher class of legal students to act both as attorneys in the stationary court of Common Pleas, and as advocates in the comparatively few cases which then required their assistance in the ambulatory courts of the King's Bench, Chancery, and Exchequer. No distinction is made in the ordinance between attor neys and apprentices, and the 140 appear to have acted indiscriminately (2 'Rot. Parl.', 96) as attorneys and as advocates, as their services happened to be required. Complaints were however still made in Parliaments(1364-5) of the prejudice arising to parties implicated in proceedings in the two latter courts, from being unable to procure the assistance of serjeants; and it was prayed, though unsuccessfully, that on this ground these courts might also be made stationary.
A petition of the Commons in 1343, that parties to suits in the Marshal sea might be allowed to plead their own causes in that court, in order that they might not be delayed for want of serjeants, had met with a more favourable reception, and the permission was granted by an act of parliament (2 Rot. Parl.,' 140), which act was not in print till the
parliament rolls were published at the commencement of the present century. It was a punishable contempt of the court for a person to interfere as advocate without possessing a legal title to the office. (' Abb. Plaeit. in Doih. Cap. Westm.; 137.) It is stated in the article BARRISTER, that serjeants and apprentices at law were supposed by Dugdale to be the same persons. Dugdale relies upon the circumstance that in the second year of Henry V I. an apprentice was heard in the court of Common Pleas, where serjeants alone practised. But Dugdale was mistaken in supposing that the apprentice acted as an advocate in that court ; for upon reference to the Year-Book' (M. 2 II. 6, fol. 5, pl. 3), it will be seen that this apprentice was merely sent by the Exchequer into the Common Pleas to ask the opinion of the judges and serjeants in the latter court upon a point of law then depending in the Exchequer; upon which the judges of the Common Pleas consulted the serjeants, and the point was debated by judges and serjeants indiscriminately. The apprentice took no part in the discussion, but carried back the result to the Exchequer, upon which that court acted. It has also been supposed that Plowden and Carrel, who are spoken of as apprentices in 4 Eliz., (1562), were at that time serjeants. With respect to the former, the mistake arose from the circumstance that a writ issued to Plowden and eleven others, in October, 1558, calling upon them to be made serjeants in Easter following. Mary dying in November, 1558, the write abated. In 1559 fresh writs were issued by Elizabeth to seven of the eleven, but the names of Plowden and four others, as may be seen in Dugdale, were omitted. Plowden therefore remained an apprentice as before, and he is properly so designated in 4 Eliz. (1562). With respect to Carrel also, we have no distinct proof that he ever took the degree of serjeant, though it seems not improbable that he was often commanded so to do. John Carrel received a writ requiring him to take the degree of a serjeant in 1540, and again in 1552 and 1551. In what manner ho was excused on these occasions, and whether he paid more attention to Mary's command. than he had done to those of her father and brother, or whether indeed the Carrel apprentice in 1562 was the same person with John Carrel, the serjeaut thrice elect, does not appear.