counteurs). Lord Brougham, in The Serjeants' Case, thus distinguishes the two branches. "If you appear," he says, "by attorney, he represents you, but when you have the assistance of an advocate you are present, and he supports your cause by his learning, ingenuity, and zeal. Appearance by attorney is one thing, but admitting advocates to plead the cause of another is a totally different proceeding." This distinction, drawn in the nineteenth century, is clearly shown upon the records of the courts all through our legal history. It is probably as old as the Norman Conquest. The appointment of an attorney is an unusual and a solemn thing, only to be allowed on special grounds and with the proper formalities. The appointment of a pleader is no such formal proceeding. The idea that one man can stand in the place of another does not come naturally to a primitive system of law. On the other hand, the idea that one man shall assist another in legal proceedings is in harmony with many old ideas concerning law and lawsuits. Whether or not there was ever a period at which a man was not allowed the assistance of his friends when pleading before a court • "Narrator, beyond all doubt, translates conteur. The problem is, how did he turn into the Serjeant? Now note that the translator of the statute of 1275 [West. I., ch. 29, as translated in the Statutes of the Realm] puts a comma between Serjeant and Pleader or other, but the original-Sjaunt Cotourdoes not. In other words, the Serjeant Counter is one person, and no distinction is intended in 1275 between the Serjeant and the pleader."—Herman Cohen, The Origins of the English Bar, 31 Law Quarterly Review, 56, 61. For other parts of the same article, see 30 Law Quarterly Review, 464, and 32 Law Quarterly Review, 411. 7 This was a case in which the exclusive privilege of the serjeants to appear at the bar of the Common Pleas was argued before the Privy Council in 1839. It is reported with many learned notes by Manning in his Serviens ad Legem.-Author's Note. On April 25, 1834, a royal mandate of King William, dated April 24, 1834, was read in the Court of Common Pleas and entered of record, taking away from the serjeants at law the exclusive privilege of practicing, pleading and audience in the Court of Common Pleas. 10 Bing. 571 (1834). The serjeants were taken by surprise (see Matter of the Serjeants at Law, 6 Bing. N. C. 187, 188 [1839]); but as "the larger number of the serjeants" were by the mandate given permanent rank ahead of any who should thereafter be appointed king's counsel (see Matter of the Serjeants at Law, 6 Bing. N. C. 235, 236 [1840] and the mandate in 10 Bing. 571, 572 [1834]), they did nothing about it until after the death of King William, who issued the mandate. Meanwhile the court gave audience to all members of the bar. When Queen Victoria ascended the throne, the serjeants petitioned her to revoke the mandate. She referred the matter to the Privy Council, and the petition was refused. Α bill to close the Court of Common Pleas to barristers at large was then introduced in the House of Lords, where it passed, but because no member of the House of Commons could be interested in it, the bill never came to a vote in that house. See In the Matter of the Serjeants at Law, 6 Bing. N. C. 232 (1840). The serjeants then applied to the Court of Common Pleas to call on serjeants and serjeants only to plead in that court. In the Matter of the Serjeants at Law, 6 Bing. N. C. 187 (1839). This last application succeeded on January 21, 1840. In the Matter of the Serjeants at Law, 6 Bing. N. C. 235 (1840). The joy of the serjeants at this restoration of monopoly was relatively short-lived, however, for by the Act of August 18, 1816 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 54), Parliament extended to all barristers the privileges of ser jeants at law in the Court of Common Pleas. Certainly he was allowed such assistance as Probably in any important case pleaders will be employed. Anesty, in his journeys over the country in pursuit of the king's court, employed many, including Glanvil. In the early years of the thirteenth century there were many who made a profession of the civil and canon law. At a time when there was much litigation in the king's courts, and when the relations between the civil and canon law on the one side and the common law on the other were close, it is probable that there were many who practised both in the civil and canon law and in the common law. We have seen that William of Drogheda's book would lead one to believe that this was the case. No doubt many of these practitioners would be in orders. But we have seen that the clergy were being discouraged in the thirteenth century from taking part in any way in the administration of lay jurisdiction. The fifth Lateran Council prohibited the clergy from appearing as advocates in the secular courts unless in causes in which they themselves were concerned, or in the causes of the poor. In 1237 the constitutions of Cardinal Otho regulated the class of advocates in the ecclesiastical courts; and these, as Professor Maitland points out, may have formed a model for the class of pleaders in the king's courts. Such a class is referred to in 1235; and from the last half of the thirteenth century there are many evidences of their existence. In 1253 a man who appeared for another was amerced because he was not an advocate." SERJEANTS AND KING'S COUNSEL. Edward Jenks, A Short History of English Law (1912) pp. 198, 199: The serjeants were a close order by the end of the thirteenth century, and received their patents direct from the Crown-in later days with much ceremony. **The serjeants sat within the "bar" or boundary of the court, and were addressed by the judges as "brothers." In the eighteenth century, their place in the legal world began to be taken by the King's Counsel Extraordinary, or simply, King's Coun 8 Plac. Abbrev. 137. But Professor Maitland suggests that it is not quite clear that the cause of amercement was the fact that the person was not a member of the legal profession.-Author's Note. 9 "The serjeants, the fathers of the Bar, whether described in Latin as narratores, in French as conteurs or in English as counters, began as nominees of the Crown and officers of the courts. * But though serjeants were recognized by early statute, neither they nor any other class of counsel were constituted by that or by any other statute or edict, for the entire constitution and position of the Bar rests on custom and tradition."F. A. Inderwick, The King's Peace (1895) Introduction, p. xiv. sel; i. e., the officially retained representatives of the Crown other than the Law Officers.1o W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law (1909) Vol. II, p. 413: The elevation, then, to the dignity of serjeant was the great step forward in the profession. It made the lawyer a member of the great gild which administered the law; and it placed him almost on an equality with the bench. The serjeants and the judges were brothers of the Order of the Coif.11 To the end they addressed one another as such, and lodged together at the Serjeants' Inns.12 We are 10 "And Bacon, who himself was never a serjeant-at-law, persuaded the Queen to create a new rank, that of Queen's Counsel, and to nominate him the first of that honourable brotherhood, a rank which was afterwards confirmed to him by James I."-F. A. Inderwick, The King's Peace (1895) p. 188. 11 "About 1207 ecclesiastics were forbidden to act as advocates in secular courts and accordingly those of the clergy who had adopted the law as a profession and were unwilling to be deprived of their means of livelihood, assumed a coiffure or close-fitting head-dress of linen or silk to hide their bald patches; and thus, according to Sir Henry Spelman, originated the Order of the Coif."-F. A. Inderwick, The King's Peace (1895) p. 91. Pulling insists that the coif "had been in use ages before the rules and constitutions prohibiting the clergy from acting as advocates, judges or assessors in the secular courts" (Alexander Pulling, The Order of the Coif [1897] p. 21), and that "the old coif of the Serjeants-at-Law in fact an honorable and distinctive head-dress corresponding to the helmet of knighthood" (Id. p. 24). * * * was Still another explanation of the coif is the following: "The word Serjeant is said to translate the Latin Servientes, and the King's Servants-at-Law, Servientes domini Regis ad legem, were, it is suggested, the lineal descendants of the fratres servientes, the servant brethren, of the Knights Templars. The peculiar dress of the 'Order of the Coif' is advanced as an argument in support of this fascinating pedigree. The Serjeants-at-Law marked their rank, it is suggested, by wearing red caps, under which, as in the East, a linen cap, or coif, was worn. Did the Templars bring this habit from the East, and were their first 'servants' Mohammedan prisoners? * A connection may be traced between the white linen thrown over the head of a Serjeant on his creation and the white mantle in which the novice was clothed when, in the Chapel of St. Anne, he was initiated into the Order of the Knights Templars, and declared a free, equal, elected and admitted brother. The theory has, indeed, been advanced that the coif was a device for covering the tonsure of ecclesiastical pleaders after clerics had been forbidden to practice in the secular courts. But this explanation seems too ingenious."-Cecil Headlam in Home & Headlam, The Inns of Court (1909) pp. 188-190. * 12 In 32 Law Quarterly Rev. 350, 351, in mentioning Mr. Arthur Underhill's chapter on Law in Shakespeare's England, it is said editorially: "The Serjeants had Inns of their own' is a slip of the pen immediately corrected by the context, as Mr. Underhill speaks within a few lines of the disappearance of Serjeants' Inn; it is needless to say no one knows better that there was only one." The Serjeants occupied several Inns from time to time and the question is whether there was any overlapping. Cecil Headlam in Home and Headlam, The Inns of Court (1909) pp. 195-198, states that there was. He refers to Scrope's Inn as "the first abode of the Serjeants" and as remaining "an Inn for Judges and Serjeants-at-Law" until 1498. Meantime "at least as early as the reign of Henry VI" (1422-1461) "the Serjeants took up their residence in Serjeants' Inn" in Fleet Street. In 1758 the Serjeants gave up the Inn in Fleet Street "and united with their brethren in Chancery Lane.' He adds: "The Inn, which the Serjeants joined when they left Fleet Street, not surprised to find that the creation of a judge was, compared with the creation of a serjeant, an informal affair. F. A. Inderwick, The King's Peace (1895) pp. 92, 93, 95, 96: The serjeants, who for some generations were the only recognized pleaders in the King's Courts, were part and parcel of the court itself. They held office under the Crown, were appointed by patent and had a monopoly which was so far remunerative that they were required to give feasts, rings [each inscribed with a motto] and presents upon their appointment.18 Their title, Servientes Domini Regis ad legem, Our Lord the King's servants at law, indicated the nature of their calling, and has stereotyped the functions of an English barrister at all times. * *They had certain specified privileges, including a salary from the Crown. * The serjeant's oath bound him to serve the King and his people, thus prescribing the divided allegiance which the Bar has always borne. * Serjeants after a time becoming too few for the business to be transacted, counsel lors at law were admitted to plead. The names of some eighty-eight of these counsellors, many of whom were afterwards serjeants and judges, have been extracted from the cases tried in the reign of Edward II, and they gave the first instance of the employment of this class of advocate. * * * [Since then] there have always been the leading counsel, whether serjeant or king's counsel, holding his office by patent, and the junior counsel, who, without any patent or official position, relies solely on his knowledge of law and his skill in pleading and practice. had been occupied by their brethren since the end of the fourteenth century. But it was not called Serjeants' Inn until 1484." * 13 "The number of serjeants was gradually increased by appointment of the Crown, but the customary feasts and the gold rings which etiquette required the serjeants to give to the judges and courtiers on these occasions became so heavy a tax on their incomes that lawyers of position who did not aspire to be judges frequently begged to be relieved from the acceptance of this honorable degree."-F. A. Inderwick, The King's Peace (1895) p. 188. "What the Forum was to the Bar of ancient Rome, old St. Paul's Cathedral was for many ages to the Serjeants-at-Law. As the Roman advocates paced up and down the Forum Romanum, waiting for clients or to respond to the demand 'licet consulere,' so the old Serjeant Counters were to be found at the Parvis of St. Paul's with the same object, or engaged at their allotted pillars [there] in consultation after the rising of the courts."-Alexander Pulling, The Order of the Coif (1897) p. 3. The same author points out that "Parvis strictly meant only the church porch, but in the case of St. Paul's clearly comprehended the nave or middle aisle of the old Cathedral, or Paul's Walk" (Id. 71, note), and that "for a century before the fire of London" that was the walk "where the wits and gallants and newsmongers met, and the Serjeants were to be found ready to receive their clients" (Id. 263, note). The serjeants used to pray in the chapel of St. Thomas à Becket before going to St. Paul to select their pillars.-Cecil Headlam in Home and Headlam, The Inns of Court (1909) p. 189. THE INNS OF COURT. W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law (1909) Vol. II, pp. 405, 406: We have seen that in Edward I's reign there are signs that a distinct legal profession is being formed. The pleaders are already a body distinct from the apprentices 14 and the attorneys; and both are becoming subject to fixed rules. Fortescue's book, De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, shows us that, towards the end of this period, this legal profession is both formed and organized. At the head of the profession, and exercising a general control over it, are the serjeants-at-law and the judges. Beneath them, grouped together in the four Inns of Court,15 and in the Inns of Chancery, are the various grades of the apprentices of the law, from the Benchers and Readers to the Inner Barristers or students.16 14 "Although the term apprentices was in the fifteenth century applied to the serjeants, it must originally have denoted the students who were attached to some recognized teacher of the law, who was perhaps in the first instance a serjeant, and later a barrister or reader who had received the diploma or degree, by virtue of which he had audience in the Courts."-Hugh H. L. Bel lot, The Inner and Middle Temple (1902) p. 2. 15 In Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliæ (1672) c. 49, it is explained that because of the expense of attending the "Innes" of Court "there is scant any man found within the Realm skillful and cunning in the laws except it be a Gentleman born, and come of a Noble stock. Wherefore they more than any other kind of men have a special regard to their Nobility, and to the preservation of their honor and fame. And to speak uprightly, there is in these greater Innes [of Court], yea and in the lesser [Innes of the Chancery] too, beside the study of the laws, as it were an university or school of all commendable qualities requisite for Noblemen. There they learn to sing, and to exercise themselves in all kinds of harmony. There also they prac tice dauncing, and other Noblemen's pastimes, as they use to do, which are brought up in the King's house. On the working dayes, most of them apply themselves to the study of the Law. And on the holy daies to the study of holy Scripture: and out of the time of Divine service to the reading of Chronicles, for there indeed are vertues studied and vices exiled. So that, for the endownient of vertue and abandoning of vice, Knights and Barons, with other States and Noblemen of the Realm place their children in those Innes, though they desire not to have them learned in the Laws nor to live by the practice thereof, but only upon their father's allowance." 16 "We cannot here go into the details of the separate constitution of these Inns. It will be sufficient to say that the governing body was then, as it is now, the Benchers, who possessed powers of education, discipline, and government over the members of the Inns very similar to those possessed by the fellows of an Oxford or Cambridge college. The Benchers were presided over by a member or members of the governing body who were annually elected. Other annually elected members managed the finances of the Society; while the Readers, assisted by the Benchers, were, responsible for the education of the members. * * The Benchers and Readers are those who have publicly lectured in the Inn."-W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law (1909) Vol. II, p. 423. * * * ** "The word 'barrister' itself perpetuates the ancient discipline of the Inns, where the dais of the governing body, or Benchers, was separated by a bar from the profane crowd of the Hall. The Halls of the Inns were not only the scenes of that business of eating and drinking the 'dinners' to which so much attention was devoted, and by which the students 'eat their way to the Bench,' but also the centers of the social life and educational system of these Guilds. "Dugdale [in his Origines Juridiciales (1671)] gives at length the degrees |