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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 least of that science will be laid in the two universities; without being exclusively confined to the chanel which it fell into at the times I have been just defcribing.

For, being then entirely abandoned by the clergy, a few stragglers excepted, 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. But still, as the ballance of learning was greatly on the side 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 inconveniences, and perhaps would have been gradually lost and overrun by the civil, (a fufpicion well justified from the frequent transcripts of Justinian 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.

THE incident 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 justice 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 justiciary of England, in the aula regis, or such of his palaces wherein his royal person refided; and removed with his houshold from one end of the kingdom to the other. This was found to occafion great inconvenience to the suitors; 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 should no longer follow the king's court, but be " held in fome certain place:" in consequence of which they have ever fince been held (a few necessary removals in times of the plague excepted) in the palace of Westminster only. This brought together the professors of the municipal law, who before were difperfed about the kingdom, and formed them into an aggregate body; whereby a society was established of persons, who (as Spelman observes) 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 leifure hours, foon raised those laws to that pitch of perfection, which they fuddenly attained under the auspices of our English Juftinian, king Edward the first.

Fortefc. de laud. LL. c. 25.

This remarkably appeared in the cafe of the abbot of Torun, M. 22 E. 3. 24. who had caused a certain prior to be fummoned to anfwer at Avignon for erecting an oratory contra inhibitionem novi operis; by which words Mr Selden, (in Flet. 8. 5.) very justly understands to be meant the title de novi operis nuntiatione both in the civil and canon law, (Ff. 39. 1. C. 8. 11. and Decretal. not E.5.32.) whereby the erection of any new buildings in prejudice of more antient

ones was prohibited. But Skipwith the king's ferjeant, and afterwards chief baron of the exchequer, declares them to be flat nonsense; "in ceux parolx, contra inhibiti"onem novi operis, ny ad pas entendment :" and justice Schardelow mends the matter but little by informing him, that they fignify a restitution in their lau; for which reason he very fagely resolves to pay no fort of regard to them. "Cco n'est que un refti"tution en lour ley, pur que a ceo n'avomus "regard, &c.

king's

IN consequence of this lucky assemblage, they naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order, and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, found it necessary to establish a new university of their own. This they did by purchasing 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 exercifes 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 barrifters (first stiled apprentices from apprendre, to learn) who answered to our ba

PC. 11.

9 Gloffar. 334.

Fortesc. c. 48.

been first appointed by an ordinance of king Edward the first in parliament, in the 20th

year of his reign. (Spelm. Glof. 37. Dug

S

Apprentices or Barristers seem to have dale. Orig.jurid. 55.)

chelors;

INTROD. chelors; as the state and degree of a ferjeant', fervientis ad legem, did to that of doctor.

THE crown seems to have foon taken under it's protection this infant seminary of common law; and, the more effectually to foster 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 some doubt at this distance of time whether the teaching of the civil law, or the common, or both, is hereby restrained. But in either case it tends to the same 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 seats of learning. If the municipal law be also 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 university, which was newly instituted in the fuburbs.

The first mention I have met with in our lawbooks of ferjeants or countors, is in the statute of Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 29. and in Horn's Mirror, c.1. §.10. 6. 2. §.5. 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. speaks of advocates at the common law, or countors (qucs 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 history of England, A. D. 1259. in the case of one William de Bussy; 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 secret; and to that end voluit ligamenta coifae fuae folvere, ut palam monftraret se tonfuram habere clericalem; fed non est permissus. - Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina fed per guttur eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem. And hence fir H. Spelman conjectures, (Glossar. 335.) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonfure of such renegade clerks, as were still tempted to remain in the fecular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithstanding their prohibition by canon.

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

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In this juridical university (for such it is insisted to have been by Fortescue and fir Edward Coke2) there are two forts 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 grow to ripeness so " are they admitted into the greater inns of the same study, call"ed the inns of court." And 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 use 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 thousand students at these several 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 universities neglected this study, yet) in the time of Henry the fixth it was thought highly necessary and was the universal practice, for the young nobility and gentry to be instructed in the originals and elements of the laws. But by degres this custom has fallen into disuse, so that in the reign of queen Elizabeth fir Edward Coke does not reckon above a thousand students, and the number at present is very confiderably less. Which seems principally owing to these reasons: first, because the inns of chancery being now almost totally filled by the inferior branch of the profeffion, they are neither commodious nor proper for the refort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are now very rarely any young students entered at the inns of chancery: secondly, because in the inns of court all forts of regimen and academical superintendance, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable and therefore entirely neglected: lastly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom

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leisure or resolution sufficient 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 such for whom the knowlege of practice is absolutely neceffary; such, I mean, as are intended for the profeffion: the rest of our gentry, (not to say our nobility also) having usually retired to their estates, or visited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life, without any instruction in the laws of the land; and indeed with hardly any opportunity of gaining instruction, unless it can be afforded them in thefe seats of learning.

AND that these are the proper places, for affording assistances of this kind to gentlemen of all stations and degrees, cannot (I think) with any colour of reason be denied. For not one of the objections, which are made to the inns of court and chancery, and which I have just enumerated, will hold with regard to the universities. Gentlemen may here associate with gentlemen of their own rank and degree. Nor are their conduct and studies left entirely to their own discretion; but regulated by a difcipline so wife and exact, yet so liberal, so sensible and manly, that their conformity to it's rules (which does at present so 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 amusements, or (what is a more noble object) the service of their friends and their country. This study will go hand in hand with their other pursuits: it will obstruct none of them; it will ornament and assist them all.

But if, upon the whole, there are any still wedded to monastic prejudice, that can entertain a doubt how far this study is properly and regularly academical, such persons I am afraid either have not confidered the constitution and design of an university, or else think very meanly of it. It must be a deplorable narrowness of mind, that would confine these seats of instruction to the limited views of one or two learned profeffions. To the praise

of

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