["our lord the king, and the lords of parliament, shall it "ever be, ruled or governed by the civil law" (m).

While things were in this situation, the clergy, finding it impossible to root out the municipal law, began to withdraw themselves by degrees from the temporal courts; and in the reign of Henry the Third, episcopal constitutions were published, forbidding the clergy to appear as advocates in foro sæculari (n). Nor did they long continue to act as judges there, not caring to take the oath of office, in all things to determine according to the law and custom of the realm (0). And Pope Innocent the Fourth is reported (though on somewhat doubtful authority) to have forbidden the very reading of the common law, because its decisions were not founded on the imperial constitutions, but merely on the customs of the laity (p).

The common law being thus neglected by the clergy, the study and practice of it devolved of course into the hands of laymen, who entertained upon their parts a most hearty aversion to the civil law, and made no scruple to profess their contempt, nay, even their ignorance of it, in the most public manner (q). But, as the balance of learning was still greatly on the side of the clergy, the study of the common law must have been subjected to many inconveniences, had it not been for a peculiar incident, which happened at a very critical time, and contributed greatly to its support.

The incident which I mean was the fixing of the Court of Common Pleas in one certain spot, namely, at Westminster,

(m) Selden, Jan. Anglor. 1, 2, s. 43; Fortesc. De Laud., c. 33. [It may well be doubted (see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 133) whether Blackstone's picture of the two parties, one ecclesiastical, the other lay, is really in accordance with the facts. But it is undoubtedly true, that for some time it was doubtful,

whether native English law would
hold its own against the Roman
system. E. J.]
(n) Wilkins.
574, 599.

Concil. vol. i. pp.

(0) Selden Ad Fletam, 9, 3. (p) Matthew Paris. Chronica Majora (Rolls Series) v. 427-8. (7) Fortesc. De Laud. c. 23.

[which great improvement in the administration of justice. was effected by an article in the great charter of liberties, by which it was directed, that "common pleas should no "longer follow the king's court, but be held in some "certain place." This brought together the professors of the municipal law, who before were dispersed about the kingdom, and formed them into an aggregate body or society addicted (as Spelman observes) wholly to the study of the common law (r). And they soon brought that law to the pitch of perfection, which it attained under the auspices of our English Justinian, King Edward the First.

In consequence of this lucky assemblage, the practitioners of the common law naturally fell into a kind of order; and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, they established a new university of their own. This they did by purchasing at various times certain houses (afterwards called the inns of court and of chancery) between the city of Westminster and the city of London; for advantage of ready access to the one, and plenty of provisions in the other (s). There exercises were performed, lectures read, and degrees were at length conferred in the common law, as at other universities in the canon and civil. The degrees were those of barristers, at first styled apprentices (apprenticii ad legem), who answered to the bachelors; and those of serjeants (servientes ad legem), who answered to the doctors of the universities (t). The crown seems soon to have taken under its protection this infant seminary of the common law; and, the more effectually to foster it, King Henry the Third, in the nineteenth year of his reign, issued an order to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London, commanding that no regent of any law schools within the city should, for the future, teach "the laws" (leges) therein (u). Whether

(r) Glossar. 334.

(s) Fortesc. c. 48. The Inns of Court are the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn.

(t) As to barristers and serjeants, see post, bk. v. c. ii.

(u) "Ne aliquis scholas regens de legibus in eadem civitate, de cætero ibidem leges doceat.”

[the Roman law only was prohibited by the order, which is Mr. Selden's opinion (r), or whether the municipal law also was included in the prohibition, as Sir Edward Coke understands it (x), the effect of it was to collect all the common lawyers into the one public university then newly instituted in the suburbs.

66

In this juridical university, for such it is insisted to have been by Sir Edward Coke (y), there were two sorts of collegiate houses; one called inns of chancery, in which the younger students of the law were usually placed, 'learning and studying (says Fortescue) the originals, "and, as it were, the elements, of the law; who, profiting "therein, as they grew to ripeness, so were they admitted "into the greater inns of the same study, called inns of court" (z). And although, under the influence of the clergy, our universities neglected the study, yet in the time of Henry the Sixth it was become the universal practice for the young nobility and gentry to be admitted into the inns of court and chancery, there to be instructed in the originals and elements of the laws (a).]

At the present day the inns of chancery have sunk into insignificance. But the inns of court still enjoy their antient reputation with the sons of our nobility and gentry; and they exercise also the exclusive privilege of conferring the degree of barrister at law, the possession of which degree is an indispensable qualification for practising as counsel in the superior courts. And for the obtaining of this degree, it is necessary to be enrolled as a student in one or other of these inns (b), and after a (v) Ad Flet. 8, 2.

(x) See 2 Inst. proëm. (y) 3 Rep. Pref.

(*) C. 49.

(a) The Inns of Chancery were latterly Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, New Inn, Staple's Inn, and Barnard's Inn. Besides these, there were formerly Furnival's Inn, the

e Strand Inn, Lyon's Inn, and

Thavies' Inn. As to Inns of Chancery, see Rex v. Barnard's Inn, (1836) 6 A. & E. 17, and the Report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into their constitution, which was presented to Parliament in the year 1855. See also Smith v. Kerr, [1900] 2 Ch. 511.

(b) The candidate for admission as a student, unless he shall have

certain period to apply to its principal officers (or benchers) for a call to the bar (c). As a qualification for call, the student must (as the general rule) have kept commons for three years (i.e. twelve terms), by dining at least six times in each term in the hall of the society into which he has obtained admission; excepting that if he is a member of an university in the United Kingdom, dining three times in each term is sufficient (d). Moreover, no student may be called to the bar, unless he has passed a public examination for the purpose of ascertaining his fitness.

Accordingly, a public examination, for all the inns collectively, takes place periodically; and this examination is compulsory in the case of all students, except for certain colonial barristers who desire to be called to the English Bar (e).

Academical instruction in the law may, however, now be obtained in schools other than those of the inns of court; and though no provision for instruction in the common law was antiently made at either Oxford or Cambridge, that deficiency has been long since redressed by the munificence of private donors, who at each of these universities have founded professorships, with appropriate

passed a public examination at some university within the British dominions, or for a commission in the Army or Navy, or for the Indian Civil Service, or for the Consular Service, or for cadetships in the three eastern colonies of Ceylon, Hong Kong, and the Straits Settlements, must in general pass a preliminary examination testing his knowledge of the English and Latin languages, and of English history. (See Consol. Reg., June, 1899). As to the relation which exists between the Inns of Courts and those who have become members, see Neate v. Denman, L. R. (1874) 18 Eq. 127;

Manisty v. Kenealy, (1875) 24
W. R. 918.

(c) An appeal from the decision of the benchers as to calling to the bar or disbarring, lies to the judges in their capacity of visitors. (See The King v. Lincoln's Inn, (1825) 4 B. & C. 855.)

(d) Consol. Reg. June, 1899, artt.

11-12.

(e) Ibid. artt. 41-49. For the purpose of affording to students the means of obtaining instruction and guidance in their legal studies, Professors (now called Readers and Assistant Readers) are appointed by a joint council of the Four Inns.

endowments for that purpose. And in the various colleges of the University of London, and the Victoria University (f), and at Bristol, and elsewhere in England, there are also now very effective schools of the common law.

(f) By the Victoria University Act, 1888, the graduates of this university have been placed upon the same level with graduates of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, with regard to

privileges and exemptions, and eligibility to appointments. By the University of London Act, 1898, provision is made for the re-constitution of the University of London.