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The Early Constitution of the Inns of Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

A. W. B. Simpson
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Extract

I propose in this article to examine two questions: the original system of government of the Inns of Court and the original relationship between call to the bar and the right of audience in the Royal Courts. Primarily I shall be concerned with the first question: I shall deal with the history of call to the bar only incidentally, and I do so because the two subjects are intimately connected with each other.

Type
Articles
Information
The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , November 1970 , pp. 241 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1970

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References

1 Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn. The Black Books. Edited by J. Douglas Walker. London, 1897.

2 The Middle Temple Records. Minutes of Parliament. Edited by Charles, Henry Hopwood. London, 1904.Google Scholar

3 Calendar of Inner Temple Records. Edited by F. A. Inderwick, London, 1896.

4 Pension Book of Gray's Inn. Edited by Fletcher, Reginald J.. London. 1901.Google Scholar

5 The first example of judicial interference appears to be in 1559: see M.T., Vol. 1, 124.

6 B.B. I at p. v.

7 Holdsworth, History of English Law, II, 496.

8 Set out in the Preface to his edition of the Pension Book of Gray's Inn.

9 Holdsworth, History of English Law, II, 496.

10 Roxburgh, The Origins of Lincoln's Inn, Chap. IV, passim. See also Appendix II to Vol. 5 of the Black Books.

11 Fragments of information survive from the records of the Inn before 1569.

12 See Admission Book, Vol. 1, p. 1, and Black Books, Vol. 1, p. 1.

13 B.B. I, p. 2.

14 B.B. I, pp. 9, 10, and see Admission Book, passim.

15 B.B. I, pp. 20, 35—ad communes clericales.

16 B.B. I, p. 9.

17 See Introduction at p. v, B.B.I at pp. 9–11, 19–20.

18 B.B. I, p. 9.

19 B.B. I, p. 50.

20 B.B. I, pp. 140, 147, 188.

21 B.B. I, p. V.

22 B.B. I, p. 140.

23 B.B. I, p. 2.

24 B.B. I, p. 3.

25 B.B. I, p. 3.

26 B.B. I, p. 21.

27 B.B. I, p. 22.

28 B.B. I, p. 27.

29 B.B. I, p. 27.

30 B.B. I, p. 35.

31 B.B. I, p. 105.

32 B.B. I, p. 38.

33 B.B. I, p. 163.

34 B.B. I, p. 2.

35 B.B. I, p. 13.

36 B.B. I, pp. 9, 10.

37 B.B. I, p. 394.

38 Inner Temple Records, xxxii; the governors in 1507 were Richard Littleton, William Rudhale and Thomas Babyngton.

39 The printed text of the Black Books is a translation into English; the original records are not normally in English. For purposes of this article I have, of course, checked the printed text against the original. References are to the printed text.

40 B.B. I, p. 9.

41 B.B. I, p. 17.

42 e.g., p. 11 (1441–42), p. 39 (1463).

43 B.B. I, p. 2.

44 B.B. I, p. 4.

45 B.B. I, p. 18.

46 B.B. I, p. 15.

47 B.B. I, p. 27.

48 B.B. I, p. 6.

49 B.B. I, p. 41.

50 See Thorne, S. E., “The Early History of the Inns of Court with Special Reference to Gray's Inn,”, Graya (1959), p. 79.Google Scholar

51 B.B. I, p. 39.

52 B.B. I, p. 38.

53 B.B. I, p. 41.

54 B.B. I, p. 66.

55 B.B. I, p. 71.

56 B.B. I, p. 89.

57 B.B. I, p. 116.

58 B.B. I, p. 121 (1500), p. 125 (1502), p. 125 (1502).

59 B.B. I, p. 129 (1502–3), p. 131 (1503–4), p. 140 (1506).

60 B.B. I, p. 139.

61 B.B. I, p. 424.

62 B.B. I, p. 30.

63 B.B. I, p. 11.

64 B.B. I, p. 41, c. 1, p. 48 (1468–69). The first mention of barristers occurs in 1454–56, B.B. I, p. 26.

65 B.B. I, p. 127, c. 1, p. 125, a reference to two classes of fellows, those within and those without the bar.

66 By a statute of 1468 (B.B. I, p. 48) only benchers and utter barristers might have a personal clerk in commons.

67 B.B. I, p. 42.

68 B.B. I, p. 100. Strictly admission to the bar, not call is mentioned.

69 B.B. I, p. 188 (1518).

70 B.B. I, p. 3.

71 B.B. I, p. 59.

72 B.B. I, p. 116.

73 “Two problems in legal history,” 24 L.Q.R. 392, and see Holdsworth, H.E.L., Vol. II, p. 496.Google Scholar Bolland's view has been questioned indirectly in a recent article by Baker, J. H. (“Counsellors and Barristers” [1969] C.L.J. 205 at pp. 214–218).Google Scholar Mr. Baker, using different evidence, reaches a conclusion which is generally compatible with the view put forward here.

74 Middle Temple Records I, p. 124.

75 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Vol. xxi (i), No. 1145.

76 Middle Temple Records I, p. 200, Acts of the Privy Council, 1574, p. 246.

76a Republished recently by Bland, D. S., “Henry VIII's Royal Commission on the Inns of Court” (1969)Google Scholar 10 J.S.P.T.L. 178, together with an introduction and commentary.

76b What appears to have happened here is that originally the two qualities of diet corresponded to two ranks of inhabitants of the Inn. By the time the report was written the three newer ranks—bencher, utter barrister and inner barrister—had been invented, which did not correspond to the two qualities of dict provided. Those who sat at clerks' commons consisted of both clerical servants of senior men and newly joined inner barristers; the rest sat at masters' commons. In effect the original system of ranks had survived fossilised in the eating arrangements. Today of course the eating arrangements—high table for the benchers, barristers' table for the barristers and other tables for the students—once more corresponds with the ranks of the members of an Inn of Court.

77 I.T.R. I, Ap. 4, 5, 91 et passim.

78 I.T.R. I, pp. 7, 39, 64.

79 I.T.R. I, p. 109, and cf. p. 90 (1527–28) for a reference to the outer bar.

80 I.T.R. I, p. 187.

81 In 1505 the list was as follows: Treasurer, four auditors, pensioner, steward for Christmas, Marshal, Butler, Clerk of the Kitchens and Master of the Revels.

82 See I.T.R. I, p. 1.

83 See I.T.R. I at p. xxii.

84 See I.T.R. I, p. 11.

85 See I.T.R. I, pp. 7, 11, 19.

86 See I.T.R. I, p. 127.

87 M.T.R. I, p. 2.

88 M.T.R. I, pp. 17, 20, 22, 25, 39.

89 Utter barristers are mentioned in 1502 (M.T.R. I, p. 2), masters of the bench and inner bar not until 1551–52 (M.T.R. I, p. 845). There is a gap in the records between 1525–1551.

90 M.T.R. I, p. 2 (1502), p. 80 (1551).

91 M.T.R. I, p. 32.

92 M.T.R. I, pp. 20, 80.

93 M.T.R. I, p. 150.

94 M.T.R. I, pp. 2 and 80.

95 B.B. I, p. 100.

96 I.T.R. I, pp. 7, 64.

97 See note 75 above.

98 M.T.R. I, p. 124.

99 M.T.R. I, p. 200.

1 M.T.R. I, p. 339.

2 I am grateful to the Keeper of the Black Books, for permission to inspect the originals, and to Mr. J. D. Heydon for reading this article in typescript and making valuable suggestions for its improvement.