be till the time of the reformation, entirely under the influence of the popish clergy; (fir John Mason the first protestant, being alfo the first lay, chancellor of Oxford) this will lead us to perceive the reason, why the study of the Roman laws was in those days of bigotry" purfued with fuch alacrity in thefe feats of learning; and why the common law was entirely defpifed, and efteemed little better than heretical. AND, fince the reformation, many caufes have conspired to prevent it's becoming a part of academical education. As, first, long ufage and established custom; which, as in every thing else, so especially in the forms of fcholaftic exercise, have justly great weight and authority. Secondly, the real intrinfic merit of the civil law, considered upon the footing of reafon and not of obligation, which was well known to the inftructors of our youth; and their total ignorance of the merit of the common law, though it's equal at least, and perhaps an improvement on the other. But the principal reafon of all, that has hindered the introduction of this branch of learning, is, that the ftudy of the common law, being banished from hence in the times of popery, has fallen into a quite different channel, and has hitherto been wholly cultivated in another place. But as the long ufage and cftablished custom, of ignorance in the laws of the land, begin now to be thought unreasonable; and as by this means the merit of those m There cannot be a ftronger inftance of the abfurd and superstitious veneration that was paid to thefe laws, than that the moft learned writers of the times thought they could not form a perfect character, even of the bleed virgin, without making her a civilian and a canonift. Which Albertus Magnus, the renowned dominican doctor of the thirteenth century, thus proves in his Summa de laudibus chryliferne virginis (aïvinum magis quam humanum opus) qu. 23. §. 5. “Item quod jura civilių, & leges, & decreta "faivit in fummo, probatur hoc modo: sapien"ta advocati manifestatur in tribus : 2012/07, 86 quod obtineat omma contra judicem juftum & laws will probably be more generally known; we may hope that the method of studying them will foon revert to it's antient course, and the foundations at leaft of that science will be laid in the two universities; without being exclufively confined to the channel which it fell into at the times I have juft been describing. FOR, being then entirely abandoned by the clergy, a few ftragglers excepted, the ftudy and practice of it devolved of course into the hands of laymen; who entertained upon their parts a moft hearty averfion to the civil law", and made no fcruple to profess their contempt, nay even their ignorance of it, in the moft public manner. But ftill, as the ballance 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 subjected to many inconveniences, and perhaps would have been gradually lost and overrun by the civil, (a fufpicion well juftified from the frequent transcripts 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 it's fupport. per 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 spot; that the feat of ordinary juftice might be manent and notorious to all the nation. Formerly that, in conjunction with all the other fuperior courts, was held before the king's In Fortefe. d: land. LL. e. 25. This remark bly appeared in the cafe of the abbot of Torun, M. 12. Edw. III. 24. who had cafed a certain prior to he fummoned to aniver at Avignon for erecti y an oratory contra libitionem novi which words Mr. Selden, (in Flet. 8. 5. very of mere ancient ones was prohibited. Bue Skipwith the king's ferjeant, and afterwards chief baron of the exchequer, declares them to be flat nonfenfe; "in ceux parclx, contra inhibitionem novi operis, ny ad pas entend“ment:" and justice Schardelow mends the matter but little by informing him, that they fgcify a restitution in their law; for which reafon he very fagely refolves to py nort of regard to them. Coo n'est que an reffitation en lour ley, par que a cas # avemus regard, wc." 66 king's capital jufticiary of England, in the aula regis, or such of his palaces wherein his royal perfon refided; and removed with his houshold from one end of the kingdom to the other. This was found to occasion 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, that "common pleas fhould no longer follow the king's court, but "be held in fome certain place:" in confequence of which they have ever since been held (a few neceffary removals in times of the plague excepted) in the palace of Westminster only. This brought together the profeffors 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 ftudy of the laws of the land, and no longer confidering it as a mere fubordinate fcience for the amusement of leisure hours, foon raised thofe laws to that pitch of perfection, which they fuddenly attained under the aufpices of our English Juftinian, king Edward 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 university of their own. This they did by purchasing at various times certain houfes (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 exercifes 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 barrifters (firft ftiled apprentices from apprendre, to learn) who answered to our bachelors; 9 Gloffer. 334. Fortefc. c. 48. been first appointed by an ordinance of king Edward the first in parliament, in the oth year of his reign. (Spelm, G. 37. Dag • Apprentices or barristers feem to have dale. Orig. jurid. 55.) chelors; as the ftate and degree of a ferjeant', fervientis ad legem, did to that of doctor. THE Crown feems to have foon taken under it's protection this infant feminary of common law; and, the more effectually to fofter and cherifh 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 fhould for the future teach law therein ". The word, law, or leges, being a general term, may create fome doubt at this diftance 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 restriction, (as fir 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 public univerfity, which was newly inftituted in the fuburbs. W IN The first mention which I have met with in our lawbooks of ferjeants or countors, is in the ftatute of Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 19. and in Horn's Mirror, c. 1. §. 10. c. 2. §. s. c. 3. §. 1. in the fame reign. But M. Paris in his life of John II, 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 then remained an en tire fecret; and to that end voluit ligamenta coifas fuae folvere, ut palam monftraret se_tonfuram habere clericalem; fed non eft permius. Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina fed per guttar eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem. And hence fir H. Spelman conjectares, (Cloffar. 335.) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonfure of such renegade clerks, as were fill tempted to remain in the fecular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithstanding their prohi❤ bition by canon. u Ne aliquis fcholas regens de legibus in eas dem civitate de caetero ibidem leges doceat. w in Flet. 8. 2. In this juridical university (for fuch it is infifted to have been by Fortescue and fir Edward Coke") there are two forts of collegiate houses; one called inns of chancery, in which the younger ftudents of the law were ufually placed, "learning and ftudying. fays Fortescue, the originals and as it were the clements of "the law; who, profiting therein, as they grew to ripenefs fo "were they admitted into the greater inns of the fame ftudy,. "called the inns of court." And in these inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the krights 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 it's practice: and that in his time there were about two thoufand Audents 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 the fixth it was thought highly neceflary 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 fir Edward Coke' does not reckon above a thoufand ftudents, and the number at prefent is very confiderably lefs. Which feems principally owing to thefe reafons: first, because the inns of chancery, being now almoft totally filled by the inferior branch of the profeílion, 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, becaufe in the inns of court all forts of regimen and academical fuperintendence, either with regard to inorals or ftudies, are found impracticable and therefore entirely neglected: laftly, becaufe perfous of birth and fortune, after baving finifhed their ufual courfes at the univerlities, have feldom leifure D |