The exact origins of
Lincoln’s Inn, and indeed of the other three Inns of Court, are not fully
known. The extant records of Lincoln’s Inn open in 1422, the
earliest of any of the Inns of Court; but a society of lawyers by that name was
then already in existence. It is likely that it evolved during the
late part of the fourteenth century. In contrast to many of the colleges of
Oxford or Cambridge, which it resembles, there was no conscious founding or
dated charter.
First, why “Inn”? As well as
applying to the houses used by travellers and pilgrims - the usage that usually
comes to mind - the term, or its Latin equivalent hospitium, also
applied to the large houses of magnates of all kinds, such as statesmen,
bishops, civil servants, and lawyers, whose business brought them to town,
especially when Parliament and the courts were in session. The area in which
many were situated were then suburbs, salubrious but convenient for both
Westminster and the City. This type of inn was often not simply an individual
residence but provided accommodation for a whole retinue of guests and
typically included, both as a focus for medieval living arrangements and as a
status symbol, a hall (indeed, the bishops’ inns were also called palaces). Law
students, or “apprentices” of law, who at the period learnt their craft largely
by attending court, sought shared accommodation during the legal terms,
sometimes in part of an inn of a magnate who did not need it.
Originally
there were at least twenty inns associated with lawyers. Gradually these became
places of legal education and there emerged the four principal Inns of Court
(ie Inns of the men of Court) that we know today. The other Inns became known
as the Inns of Chancery. You may come across their names, such as Staple Inn or
Clement’s Inn, in the vicinity. They were treated at first as preparatory
schools for the main Inns of Court and then during the seventeenth century
became the Inns exclusively for attorneys (ie solicitors) and clerks (they had
all vanished as societies by the beginning of the twentieth century).
The term “barrister” was originally
a purely internal or domestic rank - a graduate of the Inn who had successfully
negotiated the elaborate legal exercises set in Hall, which was laid out for
moots like a court, with a bar. Although there were various attempts to
regulate those who appeared in court, any requirement that they be barristers
of an Inn of Court emerged at first only as a matter of practice - a case in
1590 finally confirmed it as a matter of law. And once that happened the
process of excluding mere attorneys from membership of the Inns of Court was
accelerated.
The recognition of barristers’
exclusive right of audience was no doubt due in part to the thoroughness of the
original medieval system of legal education provided by the Inns - at least
seven years between admission as a student and call to the bar.
That system completely broke down with the English Civil War in 1642. It has to
be said that legal education in the Inns from then until the nineteenth
century, or later, cannot be regarded as the most glorious part of their
history. The old residence requirements for students were diluted into the mere
ritual of dining and the old exercises were reduced to the perfunctory
formality of reciting the first few lines of a standard formula from a
pre-prepared card. Bar exams were only introduced in 1852 and were
not even compulsory until 1872, and in any event could be passed by anyone with
a modicum of application with a few weeks study. So, a far cry from today.
Then, why “Lincoln’s” Inn? Tradition
has it that the name comes from Henry de Lacy, third Earl of Lincoln (d. 1311)
whose own house was nearby and may have been patron of the Inn. Tradition is
not to be entirely gainsaid and indeed the Earl’s arms form part of the Inn’s
arms, but it is more likely that the name came from Thomas de Lincoln, one of
the serjeants at law (senior practitioners, before the days of QCs) during the
fourteenth century.
No comments:
Post a Comment