Between the Universities and the Judiciary of England in ancient times there existed a close link, which is to be found in the serviens ad legem or Serjeant-at-Law. He was at once a graduate and a public official concerned with the administration of justice either as a recognized pleader or as a judge, for, whether in the higher or lower grade, he owed his credentials to the Crown.

We will consider the Serjeant-at-Law in the first place in his academic character, in which he might rank as a B.C.L. or as a Doctor Legum, though this is not quite what we intended by graduation. Law, like the other liberal professions, has always been regardful of outward and visible signs. This being so, we trust we have committed no very serious sin of plagiarism in borrowing as the heading of this chapter the title of a well-known work by Serjeant Pulling, one of the last survivors of the order. At any rate, the plagiarism is open and avowed.

Though the most significant, the coif was not the only exterior note of the Serjeant, in contradistinction to the laymen; and, in order to show how he appeared, when in full professional attire, we think we cannot do better than quote from a fifteenth-century lawyer, one of our greatest authorities on such matters—Serjeant Fortescue. Writing about 1467, he says of his class that they were "clothed in a long robe, priest-like, with a furred cape about the shoulders; and therefrom a hood with two labels, such as Doctors use to wear in certain Universities, with the above-described quoyf." The "long robe"—the proverbial emblem of the legal profession—evidently corresponds with the cassock, the "furred cape" to the tippet, and the "labels" probably belonged, not, as Fortescue seems to intimate, to the hood, but were rather the strings of the coif, which were the attribute of Doctors of Laws. Here we have all the marks of graduation—that is, the process necessary for the lawful exercise of a learned calling—and graduation might be equally accomplished in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge and the Inns of Court.

As regards the remainder of his dress, the Serjeant-at-Law might pass for a Master of Arts or a Bachelor of Divinity. The distinguishing feature is the coif, and, wherever it is discovered, it may be safely accepted as a criterion. Thus in Gosfield Church, Essex, there is an interesting brass of Thomas Rolf (d. 1440), who is represented as wearing a cassock, sleeved tabard, tippet, hood, and coif. The last-mentioned forms a circle round the head, and attached to it are two loops or lappets, which appear below the hood. Boutell has figured this brass, which he states to be that of a serjeant-at-law. The inscription, which has the words legi professus, already pointed to that conclusion, Rolf being devoted to law, as, under the circumstances, he might have been devoted to religion.

To anyone interested in the study of origins the symbolic value of the coif is very considerable. Like the pileus, it may be traced back to the ecclesiastical skull-cap, the corollary of tonsure. In the Dark Ages the lawyers were almost invariably clergy, in the modern sense of the term. By the thirteenth century the original skull-cap, while retaining its general shape, had developed into a head-dress of ampler proportions, and as such, might, and did, serve as a complete disguise of the clerical calling. For that reason it was forbidden to the clergy by Othobon's Constitutions (1268), except as a night or travelling cap. Like the Serjeant's coif of more recent date, it was white in colour; and, as an appanage of the legal profession, it was worn by judges and pleaders alike. The strings were used to tie the coif to the head, and were fastened under the chin. It has been plausibly suggested that the Black Cap which judges assume, when passing sentence of death, was a device for concealing the coif, ecclesiastical justices being debarred from pronouncing capital sentence; and in this connexion we may recall the constitutional tradition, which requires the Bishops to withdraw when issues involving life or death come before the Parliamentary Courts.

We have spoken of graduation in relation to law. As an explanation of the phrase, nothing could be more apt than a passage in Coke's "Third Report," which, although somewhat lengthy, deserves to be cited in toto:

"As there be in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford divers degrees, as general Sophisters, Bachelors, Masters, Doctors, of whom be chosen men for eminent and judicial places, both in the Church and Ecclesiastical Courts, so in the profession of the law there are Mootemen [i.e., students], which are those that argue readers' cases in houses of Chancery, both in terms and grand vacations. Of Mootemen, after eight years' study or thereabouts, are chosen Utter-barristers; of these are chosen Readers in inns of Chancery. Of Utter-barristers after they have been of that degree twelve years at least, are chosen Benchers or Ancients; of which one, that is of the puisne sort, reads yearly in summer vacation, and is called a Single Reader; and one of the Ancients that had formerly read reads in Lent vacation and is called a Double Reader, and commonly it is between his first and second reading about nine or ten years. And out of these the King makes choice of his Attorney and Solicitor General, his Attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries, and Attorney of the Duchy; and of these Readers are Serjeants elected by the King, and are, by the King's writ, called ad statum et gradum servientis ad legem; and out of these the King electeth one, two, or three, as please him, to be Serjeants, which are called the King's Serjeants; of Serjeants are by the King also constituted the honourable and reverend Judges and sages of the law. For the young student, which most commonly cometh from one of the Universities, for his entrance or beginning were first instituted and erected eight Houses of Chancery, to learn there the elements of the law, that is to say, Clifford's inn, Lyon's inn, Clement's inn, Staple's inn, Furnival's inn, Thavie's inn, and New inn; and each of these consists of forty or thereabouts; for the Readers, Utter-barristers, Mootemen, and inferior Students are four famous and renowned Colleges or Houses of Court, called the Inner Temple, to which the first three Houses of Chancery appertain; Gray's Inn, to which the next two belong; Lincoln's Inn, which enjoyeth the last two but one; and the Middle Temple, which hath only the last; each of the Houses of Court consists of Readers above twenty; of Utter-barristers above thrice so many; of young Gentlemen about the number of eight or nine score, who there spend their time in study of law and in commendable exercises fit for gentlemen; the Judges of the law and Serjeants, being commonly above the number of twenty, are equally distinguished into two higher and more eminent Houses, called Serjeant's Inn; all these are not far distant from one another, and altogether do make the most famous university for profession of law only, or of any one human science, that is in the world, and advanceth itself above all others quantum inter viburna cupressus. In which Houses of Court and Chancery the readings and other exercises of the law therein continually used are most excellent and behoofful for attaining to the knowledge of these laws; and of these things the taste shall suffice, for they would require, if they should be treated of, a treatise by itself."

This passage has been cited for the special purpose of exhibiting the close affinity between the Universities and the Law, for which, it will be generally conceded, it is admirably suited. It is necessary, however, that it should be pointed out that the learned Coke was writing at and of a period when the system was fullblown. In the early period when "hostels" for apprentices of the law began to be, no distinction obtained into Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery. These apprentices were, originally, just what the term implies, but their importance became greater until their representative is now the ordinary barrister-at-law.

In the year 1292—a date of some significance for us, not only in the immediate context, but with reference to other portions of the work—the King (Edward I.) promulgated an ordinance "De Attornatis et Apprenticiis" in which he enjoined on John de Metingham and his fellows that they should, at their discretion, "provide and ordain from every county certain attorneys and lawyers of the best and most apt for their learning and skill, who might do service to his court and that people, and those so chosen only, and no other, should follow his court and transact the affairs therein, the said King and his council deeming the number of seven score sufficient for that employment, but leaving it to the discretion of the judges to add to or diminish the number, as they should see fit" (Dugdale's Tr.).

Serjeant Pulling is somewhat perplexed concerning the precise position of the apprenticii ad legem at the time of this edict. He, however, hazards the conjecture that "by the apprentices were meant the advanced students, or learners of the law, who, as pupils or assistants to the Serjeants of the Coif, had obtained an insight into practice, and perhaps also there were included the more irregular followers of the law—the dilettante practitioners and Cleri Causidici, who continued to follow the law in the secular courts in spite of repeated prohibitions and objections."

With the foundation and growth of the Inns of Court, the apprentices—the better sort at least—obtained full recognition as practitioners; and at the close of the fourteenth century their reputation had become so considerable that the great apprentices had formed themselves into a distinct order, in which they stood next to serjeants-at-law, the gradation being as follows:
(i)    Serjeants-at-law.
(ii)    Nobiliores, or great apprentices.
(iii)    Other apprentices who followed the law.
(iv)    Apprentices of less estate, and attorneys.

The term "apprentice-at-law" yielded to apprenticius ad barros, and that again to "utter-barrister," corresponding to the modern "barrister-at-law." Not all the students admitted at an inn were "called" to the bar, the truth being that only a small proportion received that distinction. In 1596 an arrangement was made by the Judges and Benchers of the four Inns of Court, by which it was agreed:

"That hereafter none shall be admitted to the Barr but only such as be at the least seven years' continuance, and have kept the exercises within the House and abroad in Inns of Chancery, according to the orders of the House:

"Item, that there be in one year only four Utter-Barristers called in any Inne of Court (that is to say) in Easter Term, two, and, in Michaelmas Term, two," etc.

Again, certain orders, made for the better government of the Inns of Court and Chancery in 1624 provided that not more than eight members of any one inn should be called to the Bar in any one year, and that no Utter-Barristers, except such as had been Readers in Houses of Chancery, should begin to practise publicly at any bar at Westminster until they had been three years at the bar.

As regards the Inns of Court, their precise origin............