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The history of the Temple begins soon after the
middle of the twelfth century, when a contingent of knights of the
Military Order of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem moved from
the Old Temple in Holborn (later Southampton House) to a larger
site between Fleet Street and the banks of the River Thames. The
new site originally included much of what is now Lincoln's Inn,
and the knights were probably responsible for establishing New Street
(later Chancery Lane), which led from Holborn down to their new
quarters. Following their custom, the knights built a round church
patterned on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. An inscription on
the Round recorded that it was consecrated by the Patriarch Heraclius
on 10 February 1185, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is
thought that King Henry II was also present on that day, inaugurating
a long association between the royal family and the Temple.
Among the other buildings erected by the knights
were dormitories, storehouses, stables, chambers, and two dining
halls, one of them in the consecrated central portion and connected
with the church by a cloister. It was a house fit for kings to stay
in, and several did so. During a visit by King John in January 1215
he received a deputation of barons demanding a charter of liberties;
and when the Great Charter was signed later in the year, the Master
of the Temple was one of the witnesses. The knights took advantage
of their special privileges to make their sanctuary a safe place
for depositing treasure, and during the thirteenth century the New
Temple became a busy financial centre. It was no doubt during this
period that the first handful of lawyers came to live in the Temple,
not as distinct societies but as legal advisers to a wealthy international
organisation. The Templars thrived, adding to their round church
a fine nave, which was consecrated in the presence of King Henry
III in 1240. Many knights associated with the order were buried
in the church, the most distinguished being William Marshal (d.
1219), first Earl of Pembroke and regent of England, the very model
of medieval English chivalry, and one of the instigators of Magna
Carta. Marshal's armoured effigy, battered by time and war, may
still be seen in the Round.
After losing the Holy Land in the 1290s, the order
of the Temple fell into a decline. The knights were dubiously accused
of improprieties, and in 1312 their order was dissolved. Although
the pope granted their estates to the Knights Hospitaller of St
John of Jerusalem, King Edward II seized the New Temple as forfeit
to the Crown. Nevertheless, the consecrated portion was conceded
to the Hospitallers, and the remainder was sold to them later.
Dinner in the old Hall, Mezzotint by Findlay, 1826. |
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It is unlikely that the Hospitallers occupied the
Temple personally; it was merely a source of revenue. But it is
equally unlikely that the Temple was let to lawyers as early as
Edward II's reign. The legal profession was still nomadic, and when
in the 1330s it migrated en masse to York (with the central courts)
the shopkeepers near the Temple complained of a sudden loss of income.
The courts returned to Westminster for good early in 1339, and the
inns of court as distinct societies probably date from the years
immediately following that event. In that very year a man was killed
in the Temple by a servant of the apprentices of the king's court,
which suggests that they may already have formed a community there.
Ancient tradition dated the legal occupation of the Temple to the
1340s, and it was probably around that time that the outlying land
along Chancery Lane - not being required by the lawyer tenants -
was alienated to the bishop of Chichester to enlarge the site that
later became Lincoln's Inn. The exact date of formation of the inns
of court and chancery will never be known. Unlike colleges at the
universities, they were not incorporated or endowed by benefactors,
and they did not acquire the freehold of their sites until much
later. But it now seems likely that, from the beginning, there were
two legal societies in the Temple: one (the 'inner inn') using the
hall next the cloisters, and the other (the 'middle inn') using
the unconsecrated buildings between the inner portion and the Outer
Temple. A hall was necessary to an inn of court not merely for meals,
but because the legal societies operated from their first formation
as academic communities, with lectures and disputations. The two
halls in the Temple would therefore naturally have attracted two
inns. We do at least know for certain that the Inner Temple and
Middle Temple were distinct communities by 1388, when they are first
mentioned by those names in a manuscript year book.
Chaucer's manciple. From
the Ellesmere Manuscript. |
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Little is known of these fourteenth-century societies
in the Temple. The best-known incident in their history was the
sacking by Wat Tyler's rebels in 1381, when some of the buildings
were pulled down and lawyers' records burned. The chroniclers of
that melancholy event refer to 'apprentices of law' in the Temple,
but give no details of the legal societies or their buildings. The
devastation of 1381 may have been the occasion for rebuilding the
Inner Temple hall. At any rate, the little hall which was demolished
in 1868, though much altered over time, had a timbered roof of fourteenth-century
style; it must therefore have been built by the lawyers rather than
by their predecessors. Only five members of the Inner Temple before
1400 are known for sure, but they included the celebrated William
Gascoigne, later chief justice of the King's Bench (d. 1419), remembered
by posterity for his judicial courage in committing Prince Henry
(later King Henry V) for contempt. A less certain claim has been
made for Geoffrey Chaucer, whose name a Tudor antiquary claimed
to have seen in the Inn's archives. Whether or not Chaucer was a
member, he evidently knew the Temple well enough; his 'gentle manciple
. . . of a Temple', portrayed in the prologue to the Canterbury
Tales, served a society of 'masters more than thrice ten', and presumably
a larger community of students.
The fifteenth-century Temple is almost equally
obscure, since no domestic records survive for either society before
1500. Indeed, the only inn of court to possess records from the
fifteenth century is Lincoln's Inn, whose Black Books (beginning
in 1422) provide most of our information about the daily life of
the inns at this period.
 Sir
Thomas Littleton. Engraved by Robert Vaughan, probably
after a window in Frankley church.
(Closer
view)
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The majority of students were the sons of country
gentlemen, not intended for the legal profession. The minority who
pursued the severe study of the law were expected to keep the two
learning vacations (Lent and Summer) each year, when courses of
lectures were given on the old statutes, and also the more relaxed
Christmas vacation, when a lord of misrule and his court presided
over the festivities. In term-time the students attended Westminster
Hall, to watch the courts in action, and throughout the year they
took part in lengthy, intricate moots. For these vocational exercises,
the hall of each inn was arranged to resemble a court, with a bar
and bench. A young student sat inside the bar as an 'inner barrister';
when he became suitably qualified to argue points of law, he was
called to the bar, and as an 'utter barrister' stood outside the
bar at moots. In due course a barrister would be expected to deliver
a lecture (or 'reading'), after which he sat on the bench at moots
as a 'bencher'. These degrees achieved public recognition in the
sixteenth century; but they have remained to this day inns of court
degrees, referring to the bar and bench of the inns rather than
of the courts. We know from scattered references that the Inner
Temple had the same system in the time of Edward IV. The first identifiable
Inner Temple reading now surviving was given by Thomas Welles in
1460, though Thomas Littleton is said to have given one before 1453.
Thomas Welles is also mentioned as Treasurer in 1484. The first
reference to a 'bencher' by that title is to one Baker in the 1470s
or early 1480s, and the first to a 'barrister' is to John Green
in 1481. Like the other inns, the Inner Temple seems in this period
to have developed its own geographical catchment areas; whereas
the Middle Temple was dominated by west countrymen, the Inner Temple
drew more from the north, the midlands, and London. It is notable
that Richard III's principal lawyers were all Inner Templars: Sir
William Catesby (beheaded in 1485), chancellor of the Exchequer
and speaker of the Commons, Sir Morgan Kydwelly (d. 1505), attorney-general,
Thomas Lynom (d. c. 1518), solicitor-general, and Thomas Kebell
(d. 1500), attorney of the Duchy. Other alumni included John Paston
(d. 1466), who lived in the Inn for twenty years and mentioned it
in his letters, Sir Thomas Littleton (d. 1481), renowned author
of the Tenures, and Sir Richard Sutton (d. 1524), founder of Brasenose
College. Two of the earliest named law reporters (John Caryll and
John Port) were also Inner Templars.
Sir Edward Coke. From a
portrait dated 1593, when he was a resident bencher. |
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The sixteenth century was an age of expansion for
the common law and its practitioners, and all the inns were substantially
enlarged and beautified during the Tudor period. Spenser was referring
to the Temple when he wrote in Prothalamion (1596) of '. . . Those
bricky towers, the which on Thames broad aged back doth ride, wherein
the studious lawyers have their bowers, And whilom wont the Templar
knights to bide . . .'. The characteristic brick of the late Elizabethan
Temple must have represented, for the most part, recent construction.
Some of the development may be traced through the Inn's records,
since the minutes of parliament (the governing body of benchers)
exist from 1505; but most building projects were carried out with
private money, the investors retaining a freehold interest in the
chambers. Very few of these Tudor buildings survived into the nineteenth
century, though the name Hare Court still commemorates a rebuilding
scheme financed by Nicholas Hare in 1567. In Hare's time there were
100 sets of chambers in the Inn, making it the second largest (after
Gray's Inn); in 1574 it is recorded that only 15 benchers and 23
barristers lived in, well outnumbered by the 151 resident students.
Celebrated alumni from this period included Sir Thomas Audley (d.
1544), the Inn's first lord chancellor, two subsequent holders of
the great seal (Sir Thomas Bromley and Sir Christopher Hatton),
and, above all, Sir Edward Coke (d. 1634). Coke is still remembered
for his Reports and Institutes, which included a Commentary on Littleton;
but perhaps the greatest achievement of his stormy judicial career
was the foundation of English administrative law.
 A
reading in 1668. Brass (at Great Bookham, Surrey) of Robert
Shiers, who died in office: the only known picture of
a reader giving his lectures.
(Closer
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Coke's career leads us into the seventeenth century;
although he left the society on becoming a serjeant in 1606, he
was allowed to retain chambers in his beloved Inner Temple until
his death, and must have been a dominant presence. The expansion
of membership continued throughout that period: over 1,700 students
were admitted to the Inn between 1600 and 1640. In 1642, however,
the news of Edgehill sent bench and bar rushing home. The Inns were
all but closed for four years, and the legal university suffered
a mortal collapse. Readings were discontinued, and their revival
after the interregnum was short-lived. The first Restoration reading
(by Sir Heneage Finch in 1661) was a magnificent occasion. King
Charles II attended the reader's feast in person, and the Duke of
York (later King James II) became the first royal bencher. But readers
in general found it was easier to pay the fine for default than
to prepare lectures and pay for feasts, while the Inn doubtless
concluded that monetary compensation was more useful than specific
performance.
 Old buildings in Inner Temple Lane. Illus. London News,
11 Aug, 1860.
(Closer
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Readings therefore petered out in 1678. (The Inn
has nevertheless continued to elect readers, this being the sole
qualification for having one's coat of arms erected in hall; in
recent times the Reader has normally held office for the calendar
year prior to becoming Treasurer.) In the Restoration period the
Inn suffered three serious fires, affecting mainly the northern
and eastern parts, and in consequence rebuilt Hare Court, Tanfield
Court and King's Bench Walk - now the oldest range of chambers still
in use in the Inn. Distinguished alumni included John Hampden (d.
1643), opponent of ship-money, John Selden (d. 1654), legal historian
and defender of English liberties, Henry Rolle (d. 1656) and Sir
John Vaughan (d. 1674), two very learned chief justices, Lord Nottingham
(d. 1682), the 'father of modern equity', and the notorious 'Judge
Jeffreys' (later Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, d. 1689) of the Bloody
Assizes.
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