TO THE INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY; WITH NOTICES OF THEIR ANCIENT DISCIPLINE, RULES, ORDERS, and CUSTOMS, READINGS, MOOTS, MASQUES, INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF THE EMINENT MEN OF THE HONOURABLE SOCIETIES OF LINCOLN'S INN, THE INNER TEMPLE, THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, TOGETHER WITH The Regulations of the Four Inns of Court AS TO THE ADMISSION OF STUDENTS, KEEPING TERMS, LECTURES, BY ROBERT R. PEARCE, ESQ., OF GRAY'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. LONDON: BUTTERWORTHS, 7, FLEET STREET, Law Publishers to the Queen's most excellent Majesty. 1855. PREFACE. IT has been my endeavour, in the following pages, to present to the reader every authentic particular known relative to the early history of the Inns of Court, and the houses of Chancery subordinate to them. All the early authorities who have written on this subject, and such statutes and records as illustrate the history of the legal profession in this country, together with the monuments and tablets in the halls and chapels of the four Inns of Court, and such manuscript collections as contained matter bearing on my subject, have been carefully reviewed and examined. I have been desirous of collecting as copious and as exact an account as practicable of the Ancient Readings in the Four Inns, as an exhibition of those readings cannot fail to stimulate the cause of legal education, to which happily attention has now become alive. In the chapters on Masques' and 'Revels,' the reader will find accounts of the recreations with which the severer studies of ancient times were tempered. All the rules, orders, and regulations now in force respecting admission, keeping terms, calls to the bar, &c., have been ascertained from official documents and personal inquiry in the treasurers' and stewards' offices |