lick manner. But ftill, as the balance of learning was greatly on the fide of the clergy, and as the common law was no longer taught, as formerly, in any part of the kingdom, it must have been fubjected to many inconveniencies, and perhaps would have been gradually loft and overrun by the civil (a fufpicion well juftified from the frequent tranfcripts of Juftinian to be met with in Bracton and Fleta) had it not been for a peculiar incident, which happened at a very critical time, and contributed greatly to its fupport.

The incident which I mean was the fixing the court of common pleas, the grand tribunal for disputes of property, to be held in one certain fpot; that the seat of ordinary juftice might be permanent and notorious to all the nation. Formerly that, in conjunction with all the other fuperior courts, was held before the king's capital jufticiary of England, in the aula regis, or fuch of his palaces wherein his royal perfon refided; and removed with his household from one end of the kingdom. to the other. This was found to occafion great inconvenience to the fuitors; to remedy which it was made an article of the great charter of liberties, both that of king John and king Henry the third P, that " "pleas fhould no longer follow the king's court, but

common

be held in fome certain place :" In confequence of which they have ever fince been held (a few neceffary removals in times of the plague excepted) in the palace of Westminster only. This brought together the profeffors

M. 22. Edw. III. 24. who had caufed a certain Prior to be fummoned to answer at Avignon for erecting an oratory contra inhibitionem novi operis; by which words Mr. Selden (In Flet. 8. 5.) very juftly underftands to be meant the title de novi operis nuntiatione both in the civil and canon laws (Ff. 39. 1. C. 8. 11. and Decretal. not Extrav. 5. 32.) whereby the erection of any new buildings in prejudice of more ancient ones was prohibited. But Skipwith the king's fergeant, and afterwards chief baron of the exchequer, declares them to be flat nonfenfe ; "in ceux parolx, contra inhibitionem novi operis, ny ad pas entendment :" and juftice Schardelow mends the matter but little by informing him, that they fignify a reftitution in their law: For which reafon he very fagely refolves to pay no fort of regard to them. "Ceo n'est que un reftitution en lour ley, pur que a ceo n'avomus regard, "&c."

P C, 11.

feffors of the municipal law, who before were dispersed about the kingdom, and formed them into an aggregate body; whereby a fociety was established of perfons, who (as Spelman obferves) addicting themselves wholly to the study of the laws of the land, and no longer confidering it as a mere fubordinate science for the amusement of leisure hours, foon raised those laws to that pitch of perfection, which they fuddenly attained under the auspices of our English Juftinian, king Ed

ward the first.

In confequence of this lucky affemblage, they naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order, and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, found it neceffary to establish a new univerfity of their own. This they did by purchafing at various times certain houses (now called the Inns of Court and of Chancery) between the city of Westminster, the place of holding the king's courts, and the city of London; for advantage of ready accefs to the one, and plenty of provifions in the other Here exercises were performed, lectures read, and degrees were at length conferred in the common law, as at other univerfities in the canon and civil. The degrees were thofe of barristers (first stiled apprentices from apprendre, to learn) who anfwered to our bachelors; as the ftate and degree of a fergeant, fervientis ad legem, did to that of doctor.

q Gloffar. 334.

r Fortefc. c. 48.

S

The

s Apprentices or barrifters feem to have been first appointed by an ordinance of King Edward the first in Parliament, in the 20th year of his reign. (Spelm. Gloff. 37. Dugdale, Orig. jurid. 55.)

The firft mention which I have met with in our law books of fergeants or countors, is in the ftatute of Weftm. 1. 3. Ewd. I. c. 29. and in Horn's Mirror, c. 1. §. 10. c. 2. §. 5. c. 3. §. 1. in the fame reign. But M. Paris in his life of John 11. abbot of St. Alban's, which he wrote in 1255, 39 Hen. III. fpeaks of advocates at the common law, or countors, (quos banci narratores vulgariter appellamus) as of an order of men well known. And we have

an example of the antiquity of the coif in the fame author's hiftory of England, A. D. 1259. in the cafe of one William de Buffy; who being called to account for his great knavery and malpractices, claimed the benefit of his orders or clergy, which till

thea

The crown feems to have foon taken under its protection this infant feminary of common law; and, the more effectually to fofter and cherish it, king Henry the third, in the nineteenth year of his reign, issued out an order directed to the mayor and sheriffs of London, commanding that no regent of any law schools within that city should for the future teach law therein". The word law, or leges, being a general term, may create fome doubt at this distance of time, whether the teaching of the civil law, or the common, or both, is hereby reftrained. But in either cafe it tends to the fame end. If the civil law only is prohibited (which is Mr. Selden's opinion) it is then a retaliation upon the clergy, who had excluded the common law from their feats of learning. If the municipal law be alfo included in the reftriction (as Sir Edward Coke understands it, and which the words feem to import) then the intention is evidently this; by preventing private teachers within. the walls of the city, to collect all the common lawyers into the one publick university, which was newly inftituted in the suburbs.

In this juridical univerfity (for fuch it is infifted to have been by Fortefcue y and Sir Edward Cokez) there are two forts of collegiate houses; one called Inns of Chancery, in which the younger ftudents of the law were usually placed, "learning and studying, fays For"tefcue, the originals, and as it were the elements of "the law; who, profiting therein, as they grew to "ripenefs, fo were they admitted into the greater inns "of the same study, called the Inns of Court." And

in

then remained an entire fecret; and to that end voluit ligamenta coifae fuae folvere, ut palam monftraret fe tonfuram habere clericalem; fed non eft permiffus.Satelles vero, eum arripiers, non per coifae ligamina fed per guttur eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem. And hence Sir H. Spelman conjectures (Gloffar. 335.) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonfure of fuch renegade clerks as were fill tempted to remain in the fecular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithstanding their prohibition by canon.

u Ne aliquis fcholas regens de legibus in eadem civitate de caetero ibidem leges doceat.

in these inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the knights and barons, with other grandees and noblemen of the realm, did ufe to place their children, though they did not defire to have them thoroughly learned in the law, or to get their living by its practice; and that in his time there were about two thousand students at these feveral inns, all of whom he informs us were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born.

Hence it is evident, that (though under the influence of the monks, our univerfities neglected this ftudy, yet) in the time of Henry VI. it was thought highly neceffary, and was the univerfal practice, for the young nobility and gentry to be inftructed in the originals and elements of the laws. But by degrees this cuftom has fallen into difufe; fo that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke ↳ does not reckon above a thousand students, and the number at present is very confiderably lefs, which feems principally owing to these reafons: first, Because the Inns of Chancery, being now almost totally filled by the inferior branch of the profeffion, are neither commodious nor proper for the refort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; fo that there are very rarely any young ftudents entered at the Inns of Chancery: fecondly, Because in the Inns of Court all forts of regimen and academical fuperintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected: laftly, Becaufe perfons of birth and fortune, after having finished their ufual courfes at the univerfities, have feldom leifure or refolution fufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction. Wherefore few gentlemen now refort to the Inns of Court, but fuch for whom the knowledge of practice is abfolutely neceffary; fuch, I mean, as are intended for the profeffion: the rest of our gentry (not to lay our nobility alfo) having ufually retired to their eftates, or vifited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon publick life, without any inftruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly any opportunity of gaining inftruction, unless it can be afforded them in thele feats of learning.

And

And that these are the proper places for affording af fiftances of this kind to gentlemen of all ftations and degrees, cannot, I think, with any colour of reafon be denied. For not one of the objections which are made to the Inns of Court and Chancery, and which I have just now enumerated, will hold with regard to the univerfities. Gentlemen may here affociate with gentlemen of their own rank and degree. Nor are their conduct and ftudies left entirely to their own difcretion; but regulated by a difcipline fo wife and exact, yet fo liberal, fo fenfible and manly, that their conformity to its rules (which does at prefent fo much honour to our youth) is not more the effect of constraint, than of their own inclinations and choice. Neither need they apprehend too long an avocation hereby from their private concerns and amufements, or (what is a more noble object) the fervice of their friends and their country. This ftudy will go hand in hand with their other purfuits: It will obftruct none of them; it will ornament and affift them all.

But if, upon the whole, there are any, ftill wedded to monaftick prejudice, that can entertain a doubt how far this ftudy is properly and regularly academical, fuch perfons I am afraid either have not confidered the contitution and defign of an univerfity, or elfe think very meanly of it. It must be a deplorable narrowness of mind, that would confine these feats of inftruction to the limited views of one or two learned profeffions. To the praise of this age be it fpoken, a more open and generous way of thinking begins now univerfally to prevail. The attainment of liberal and genteel accomplishments, though not of the intellectual fort, has been thought by our wifeft and most affectionate patrons, and very lately by the whole univerfity, no fmall improvement

e Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in his Dialogue of Education, among his tracts, p. 325. appears to have been very folicitous, that it might be made a part of the ornament of our learned academies to teach the qualities of riding, dancing, and fencing, at those Ghaurs when more ferious exercifes fhould be intermitted."

d By accepting in full convocation the remainder of Lord Clarendon's history from his noble defcendants, on condition to apply the profits arifing from its publication to the establishment of a manage in the university.