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k's conjecture be correct, they are the clerical members of the choir. Two of them have a scarf over a surplice or, as is more likely, a loose-sleeved cassock. Lowest in rank are the surpliced choristers wearing hoods, with, in some instances, a liripipe depending from them behind. JUDICIAL CHAPTER X THE ORDER OF THE COIF 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 S
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