Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/696

 682 V. BENCH AND BAR Inn. Still later another body obtained the mansion of the Lords Gray de Wilton, and became Gray's Inn. Connected with the larger Inns were ten smaller Inns of Chancery, having no connection with the court of chancery, but so called because they were the preparatory schools where the students studied the original writs, which were issued out of the chancery. But there was, of course, some reason why, on the edge of the city, just beyond the city wall, all these students should have found a lodging place. Fortescue explains that the laws of England cannot be taught at the university, but that they are studied in a much more commodious place, near the king's court, where the laws are daily pleaded and argued and where judgments are rendered by grave judges, of full years, skilled and expert in the laws. The place of study is near an opulent city, but in a spot quiet and retired, where the throng of passers-by does not disturb the students, yet where they can daily attend the courts. In the smaller Inns the nature of writs is studied. The students come there from the universities and grammar schools, and as soon as they have made some progress they pass into the larger Inns. At each of the smaller Inns are about a hundred students, while none of the larger Inns has less than two hundred. These four larger Inns were wholly voluntary institutions. The older and better known barris- ters of an Inn became the benchers, and they were self-per- petuating. They alone had and still retain the exclusive priv- ilege of calling to the bar, but upon their refusal an appeal lay to the judges. In these four Inns the students studied the cases in the Year Books, the legal treatises called Fleta and Britton, read the statutes, and attended at court in term timeJ Instruction was given by arguing moot cases before a bencher and two barristers sitting as judges, and by lec- tures called readings delivered by some able barrister belong- ing to the Inn. These readings were often cited as author- ity. Littleton's was on De Donis, Bacon's was on the Statute of Uses, Dyer's upon the Statute of Wills, Coke's upon the Statute of Fines. It was a high honor to be selected as