, those students so increased
here, that at length they divided themselves into two bodies; the one
commonly known by the Society of the Inner Temple, and the other of the
Middle Temple, holding this mansion as tenants." But as both societies
had a common origin in the migration of lawyers from Thavies Inn,
Holborn, in the time of Edward III., it is usual to speak of the two
Temples as instituted in that reign, and to regard all four Inns of
Court as the work of the fourteenth century.

The Inns of Chancery for many generations maintained towards the Inns of
Court a position similar to that which Eton School maintains towards
King's at Cambridge, or that which Winchester School holds to New
College at Oxford. They were seminaries in which lads underwent
preparation for the superior discipline and greater freedom of the four
colleges. Each Inn of Court had its own Inns of Chancery, yearly
receiving from them the pupils who had qualified themselves for
promotion to the status of Inns-of-Court men. In course of time,
students after receiving the preliminary education in an Inn of Chancery
were permitted to enter an Inn of Court on which their Inn of Chancery
was not dependent; but at every Inn of Court higher admission fees were
charged to students coming from Inns of Chancery over which it had no
control, than to students who came from its own primary schools. If the
reader bears in mind the difference in respect to age, learning, and
privileges between our modern public schoolboys and university
undergraduates, he will realize with sufficient nearness to truth the
differences which existed between the Inns of Chancery students and the
Inns of Court students in the fifteenth century; and in the students,
utter-barristers, and benchers of the Inns of Court at the same period
he may see three distinct orders of academic persons closely resembling
the undergraduates, bachelors of arts, and masters of arts in our
universities.

In the 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae,'[22] written in the latter part of the
fifteenth century, Sir John Fortescue says--"But to the intent, most
excellent Prince, yee may conceive a forme and an image of this study,
as I am able, I wil describe it unto you. For there be in it ten lesser
houses or innes, and sometimes moe, which are called Innes of the
Chauncerye. And to every one of them belongeth an hundred students at
least, and to some of them a much greater number, though they be not
ever all toget