Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/701

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE .AGES 687 yer, the chiefship of the Common Pleas, for four thousand / marks. There are no names of great lawyers in this reign. The worthy Fineux, who became Chief Justice, had an immense practice. He was steward to 129 manors and counsel for 16 noblemen. His industry was marvelous, for he left 23 folio volumes of notes of 3,502 cases that he had managed. The growing importance of the mercantile class is shown by the elevation of Frowick, a member of a London family of goldsmiths. He succeeded Brian as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Thomas Whittington, a baron of the Ex- chequer, was a grand nephew of the famous Richard Whit- tington, who walked to London and who while sitting dis- couraged at the foot of Highgate Hill heard the prophecy of Bow Bells, and lived to become the banker of kings and the greatest of merchant princes. Another celebrated lawyer of this time was Richard Kingsmill. A letter still extant says : " For Mr. Kings- mill it were well doon that he were with you for his authority and worship, and he will let for no maugre, and yf the enquest passe against you he may showe you summ com- fortable remedy, but, sir, his coming will be costly to you.'* The childlike confidence in the high-priced lawyer is touch- ing. But the fees seem ridiculously small. We know that the Goldsmiths' Company of London paid a retainer of ten shillings. " A breakfast at Westminster spent on our coun- sel " cost one shilling sixpence. Serjeant Yaxley's retainer from the litigious Plumpton for the next assizes at York, Notts, and Derby, was five pounds, and a fee of forty marks, if the Serjeant attended the assizes. Two interesting features of this time are the beginning of our modern law of corporations, as applied to merchant guilds and trading corporations, and the growth of law book printing. Caxton printed no law book; but Wynken de Worde printed Lynwoode's Provinciale, ' and Lettou and Machhnia, trained under Caxton, printed in 1480 Littleton's Tenures, an edition supposed to have been superintended by the author. This book was most frequently reissued: and two famous printers, Pynson and Redman, got into a