Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/699

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE AGES 685 As in after times, the judges were selected only from the Serjeants. Fortescue describes the oath which the judges take, — to do justice to all men, to delay it to none, even though the king himself command otherwise, that he will take no gift or reward from any man having a cause before him and will take no robes or fees except from the king. Lov- ingly Fortescue tells of the life of leisure and study of the judges, how the courts sit only in the morning, from eight until eleven. Then the judges go to their dinner. At Ser- jeants' Inn the judges dined and met the Serjeants there. Fortescue himself had chambers in the old Serjeants' Inn.^ From Clifford's Inn one may now enter the old building where Fortescue lodged, but it is no longer used by the Serjeants, for that ancient order is extinct. After their dinner the judges spent the rest of the day in the study of the laws, reading of the Scriptures, and other studies at their pleasure. It is a life rather of contemplation than of action, says Fortescue, free from every care and removed from worldly strife. Proudly he tells his prince that in his time no judge was found that had been corrupted with gifts or bribes. Fortescue's De Laudibus is the unique production of that age. Here we see the legal system set forth, from the day the student enters an Inn of Chancery through his studies in an Inn of Court, his service at the bar, until his elevation and work upon the bench. It is fully described by one of the greatest of common lawyers, " this notable bulwark of our laws," as Sir Walter Raleigh calls Fortescue. But we ought not to part from this great lawyer without remarking his serene and steadfast faith in God's direct government of the world, — that wonderful faith of the Middle Ages. Fortescue feels that the good man is blessed. The fact that upright judges leave behind them a posterity is to him ^The Serjeants at law had their lodgings in the Old Serjeants' Inn, which stands in Chancery Lane. But it is likely that the lodgings were occupied only during term time. The Paston Letters tell us how the good wife at home sent up from the country hams, chickens and cheese. But as soon as court adjourned for the long vacation the Ser- jeants and judges hurried to their homes in the country. The arrange- ment of the terms with the long vacation at harvest time proves the country residence of the judges and lawyers.