retains the name of the ancient proprietors of the soil. Concerning the exact date of its institution, the uncertainty is even greater than that which obscures the foundations of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn; but antiquaries have agreed to assign the creation of Gray's Inn, as an hospicium for the entertainment of lawyers, to the time of Edward III.

The date at which the Temple lawyers split up into two separate societies is also unknown; but assigning the division to some period posterior to Wat Tyler's insurrection, Dugdale says, "But, notwithstanding this spoil by the rebels, those students so increased here, that at length they divided themselves into two bodies: the one commonly known by the Society of the Inner Temple, and the other of the Middle Temple, holding this mansion as tenants." But as both societies had a common origin in the migration of lawyers from Thavies Inn, Holborn, in the time of Edward III., it is usual to speak of the two Temples as instituted in that reign, and to regard all four Inns of Court as the work of the fourteenth century.

Besides these four Inns of Court there were certain inferior seminaries, called Inns of Chancery, of which notice should be taken.

The Inns of Chancery for many generations maintained towards the Inns of Court a position similar to that which Eton School maintains towards King's at Cambridge, or that which Winchester School holds to New College at Oxford. They were seminaries in which lads underwent preparation for the superior discipline and greater freedom of the four colleges. Each Inn of Court had its own Inns of Chancery, yearly receiving from them the pupils who had qualified themselves for promotion to the status of Inns-of-Courtmen. In course of time, students, after receiving the preliminary education in an Inn of Chancery, were permitted to enter an Inn of Court on which their Inn of Chancery was not dependent; but at every Inn of Court higher admission fees were charged to students coming from Inns of Chancery over which it had no control, than to students who came from its own primary schools. the reader bears in mind the difference in respect of age, learning, and privileges between our modern public schoolboys and university undergraduates, he will realize with sufficient

If

nearness to truth the differences which existed between the Inns of Chancery students and the Inns of Court students in the fifteenth century; and in the students, utter-barristers, and benchers of the Inns of Court at the same period he may see three distinct orders of academic persons closely resembling the undergraduates, bachelors of arts, and masters of arts in our universities.

In the "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ,"* written in the latter half of the fifteenth century, Sir John Fortescue says-" But to the intent, most excellent Prince, yee may conceive a forme and an image of this study, as I am able, I wil describe it unto you. For there be in it ten lesser houses or innes, and sometimes moe, which are called Innes of the Chauncerye. And to every one of them belongeth an hundred students at least, and to some of them a much greater number, though they be not ever all together in the same. These students, for the most part of them, are young men (juvenes), learning. or studying the original, and, as it were, the elements of the lawe, who profitting therein, as they grow to rypenesse, so are they admitted into the greater innes of the same studie, called Innes of Court. Of the which greater Innes there are fower in number, and to the least of them belongeth, in fourme above mentioned, two hundred students or thereabout." In this passage the special function of the Inne of Chancery as a preparatory school is emphatically declared.

It also appears from the same passage that the number of these inferior seminaries fluctuated. "For there be in it ten lesser houses or Innes, and sometimes moe." In Charles II.'s time their number was eight.

Of this number three were subsidiary to the Inner Templeviz., Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, and Lyon's Inn. Clifford's Inn (originally the town residence of the Barons Clifford) was first inhabited by law-students in the eighteenth year of Edward III. Clement's Inn (taking its name from the adjacent St. Clement's Well) was certainly inhabited by law-students as

The "De Laudibus" was written in Latin; but for the convenience of readers not familiar with that classic tongue, the quotations from the treatise are given from Robert Mulcaster's English version.

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early as the nineteenth year of Edward IV. Lyon's Inn was an Inn of Chancery in the time of Henry V.

One alone (New Inn) was attached to the Middle Temple. Of this Inn, Dugdale, with a reference to Stow, observes— "This house having been formerly a common hostelry or inne for travaillers and other; and from the sign of the blessed Virgin, called our Lady Inne, became first an hostel for students of the law (as the tradition is) upon the removal of the students of the law from an old Inn of Chauncery called St. George his Inne, situate near Seacole Lane, a little south from St. Sepulchre's Church, without Newgate." In the previous century, the Middle Temple had possessed another Inn of Chancery called Strand Inn; but in the third year of Edward VI. this nursery was pulled down by the Duke of Somerset, who required the ground on which it stood for the site of Somerset House.

Lincoln's Inn had for dependent schools Furnival's Inn and Thavies Inn-the latter of which hostels was inhabited by law-students in Edward III.'s time. Of Furnival's Inn (originally Lord Furnival's town mansion, and converted into a law-school in Edward VI.'s reign) Dugdale says: "After which time the Principall and Fellows of this Inne have paid to the society of Lincoln's Inne the rent of iii vis iiid as an yearly rent for the same, as may appear by the accompts of that house; and by speciall order there made, have had these following priviledges: first (viz. 10 Eliz.) that the utter-barristers of Furnivall's Inne, of a yeares continuance, and so certified and allowed by the Benchers of Lincoln's Inne, shall pay no more than four marks apiece for their admittance into that society. Next (viz. in 11 Eliz.), that every fellow of this inne, who hath been allowed an utter-barrister here, and that hath mooted here two vacations at the Utter Bar, shall pay no more for their admissions into the Society of Lincoln's Inne than xiii iiiid, though all utter-barristers of any other Inne of Chancery (excepting Thavyes Inne) should pay xx, and that every inner-barrister of this house, who hath mooted here one vacation at the Inner Bar, should pay for his admission into this House but xx, those of other houses (excepting Thavyes Inne) paying xxvi viiid." From this passage (to which reference will

be made in a subsequent chapter of this work), it appears that the students of the Inns of Chancery were divided into ranks corresponding with the various ranks of Inns of Court Men ; and that their scholastic orations and exercises imitated the speeches and proceedings of Westminster Hall.

The subordinate seminaries of Gray's Inn, in Dugdale's time, were Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn. Originally the Exchange of the London woollen merchants, Staple Inn was a law-school as early as Henry V.'s time. It is probable that Barnard's Inn became an academy for law-students in the reign of Henry VI.

CHAPTER LIX.

LAWYERS AND GENTLEMEN.

THUS planted in the fourteenth century beyond the confines of the City, and within easy access of Westminster Hall, the Inns of Court and Chancery formed an university, which soon became almost as powerful and famous as either Oxford or Cambridge. For generations they were spoken of collectively as the law-university, and though they were voluntary societies -in their nature akin to the club-houses of modern Londonthey adopted common rules of discipline, and an uniform system of instruction. Students flocked to them in abundance; and whereas the students of Oxford and Cambridge were drawn from the plebeian ranks of society, the scholars of the lawuniversity were invariably the sons of wealthy men and had usually sprung from gentle families. Whilst the colleges on

the banks of the Isis and Cam sheltered or drew within the shadow of their walls a vast multitude of indigent, ragged, low-born scholars, the colleges on the banks of the Thames were frequented by the flower of England's youth, and entertained no pupil who had not the port and position of a gentleman. To be a law-student was to be a stripling of quality. The law-university enjoyed the same patrician prestige and éclat that now belong to the more aristocratic houses of the old universities.

Noblemen sent their sons to it in order that they might acquire the style and learning and accomplishments of polite society. A proportion of the students were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the law, and to attend sedulously the sittings of Judges in Westminster Hall; but the majority of well-descended boys who inhabited the Inns of Chancery were heirs to good estates, and were trained to