INNS OF COURT are so called, according to some, because the students there are to serve and attend the courts of judicature; or because these colleges anciently received none but the sons of noblemen, and the better sort of gentlemen, who, as Fortescue affirms, were to be there qualified to serve the king in his court. In the time of Fortescue, there were about two thousand students in the inns of court and chancery, all of whom were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born. But this custom gradually fell into disuse; so that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke does not reckon above one thousand students, and the number at present is perhaps not greater. For this Judge Blackstone assigned the following reasons: "1. Because the inns of chancery being now almost totally filled by the inferior branch of the profession, are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are very rarely any young students entered at the inns of chancery. 2. Because in the inns of court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected. 3. Because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction; wherefore few gentlemen now resort to the inns of court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary, i.e., in such as are intended for the profession."
Our inns of courts, justly famed for the production of men of learning in the law, are governed by benchers. They still enjoy the exclusive privilege of conferring the rank or degree of barrister-at-law, without which no one can practise as an advocate in the superior courts at Westminster. As a qualification for the call, the student must have kept commons for three years, and have attended a certain number of the lectures delivered by the readers.
The inns of court are—the Inner Temple and Middle Temple, formerly the dwelling of the Knights Templars; and Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, which anciently belonged to the Earls of Lincoln and Gray.