of concealing the clerical tonsure, and thus disguising those renegade
clerks, who were desirous of eluding the canon, restraining the clergy
from practising as counsel in the secular courts. Hortensius, 349. By
others it is referred to a much earlier period, when the practice in the
higher courts was monopolized by the clergy, and those who were not in
orders invented the coif to conceal the want of clerical tonsure. 1
Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, 85, note. There are, indeed,
several circumstances to remind us of the ecclesiastical origin of our
profession in England. The terms--on the festival of St. Hilary (Bishop
of Poictiers, in France, who flourished in the fourth century); Easter;
the Holy Trinity; and of the blessed Michael, the Archangel;--the habits
of the judges, their appearance in court in scarlet, purple, or black,
at particular seasons--the use of the word _brother_ to denote serjeant,
and _laity_ to distinguish the people at large from the profession--the
coif of the serjeants--the bands worn by judges, serjeants, and counsel,
and the gown and hood of graduates of the inns of court,--many of such
circumstances raise a strong presumption that the legal university was
founded before the time of the enactment of the canons in the reign of
King Henry III, compelling the clergy to abandon the practice of the law
in the secular courts (Pearce's History, 22). _Nulles clericus nisi
causidicus_, was the character given of the clergy, soon after the
Conquest, by William of Malmsbury. The judges, therefore, were usually
created out of the sacred order, as was likewise the case among the
Normans; and all the inferior offices were supplied by the lower
clergy, which has occasioned their successors to be styled _clerks_ to
this day (1 Bl. Com. 17). The livings in the gift of the Chancellor were
originally intended as a provision for them, and an order was made in
Parliament, 4 Edw. III, that "the Chancellor should give the livings in
his gift, rated at twenty marks and under, to the King's clerks in
Chancery, the Exchequer, and the two Benches, according to usage, and to
none others." 1 Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, 170, note.

In the time of Fortescue, sixteen years' continuance in the study of the
law was the period of time considered a necessary qualification in
candidates for the coif. There seems, however, never to have been a
regulation to that effect; and it is certain that persons have often