s servientes_, of the old Order. Had the white
linen coif worn by sergeants the same symbolical meaning as the
Templars' white mantle? Was it, as some say, the survival of a linen
headdress brought back by the Templars from the East? These are
disputable points. At any rate, the common life at the Temple, with the
associations which it recalled, cannot have been without its influence
on the lawyers. Their numbers grew apace. By 1470 courses of legal
studies had been organised, and each of the two Inns at the Temple had
more (perhaps considerably more) than two hundred students--numbers
amply sufficient to resist successfully any attempts on the part of the
Lord Mayor, backed by the city apprentices, to enforce an illegal
jurisdiction over the precincts. In the absence of maps and records we
cannot trace with certainty the gradual extension of the buildings. Such
names as Elm Court and Figtree Court suggest that in byegone days open
spaces and garden plots were interspersed among the chambers. Not least
among the amenities of the lawyers' goodly heritage was the large garden
by the river side with its pretty fifteenth century story of the red and
white roses. It has been said that Shakespeare in his well-known scene
refers to the smallness of the hall in the phrase which he assigns to
Suffolk:

"Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;
The garden here is more convenient."

But do the words imply more than the obvious contrast between being
indoors and in the open air, as regards noise? We have a companion
picture to Shakespeare's garden-scene in Spenser's river-piece. Some
people see in it a reference to "Brick Buildings" which stood on the
site of what is now Brick Court:

"Those bricky towers
The which on Themmes brode aged back do ride
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers;
There whilome wont the Templer Knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride."

In 1540, on the dissolution of the Order of Knights Hospitallers, the
two societies became yearly tenants of the Crown, and took over the
charge of the fabric of the church. No change, however, was made in the
ecclesiastical staff, John Mableston, sub-prior, William Ermestede,
master of the Temple, and the two chaplains of the house being continued
in their offices. There were modifications, of course, in the services
of the church; but nowhere probably in London did the Reformation cause
less interference with e