while held, according to the usage of those days, a sumptuous feast in the Hall, at which noblemen, judges, and officers of State were entertained, and sometimes the King himself. The evenings of the grand vacations were occupied with the exercise called mooting, when, according to one of the old accounts, "before three of the elders or benchers at the leste, is pleadyd and declared in homely law French, by such as are young lerners, some doubtfull matter or question in the law; which after an utter-barrister doth reherse, and doth argue and reason to it in the law Frenche;' and after him another utter-barrister doth reason in the contrary part, in law Frenche also; and then do the three benchers declare their myndes in Eng lish." These were the exercises of the grand vacations; but Stowe mentions that others similar were performed in term time, argu ing and debating cases after dinner, and mooting after supper, in the same manner as in the vacation. In the mean vacations the same system was carried on, with this difference, that the junior members of the society were those engaged. The utter-barristers presided in the place of the benchers, and " the young men that be no utter-barristers " argued before them in law French. An additional plan was adopted in the Middle Temple among the students them selves. After dinner and supper, they sat together by three in a company, and, one of the three putting forth some doubtful ques tion, they argued upon it in English, and at last the propounder of the question gave his opinion, and showed the judgment of the book from which the point was taken; "and," according to the old authority where this custom is mentioned, " this do the stu dents observe every day throughout the year, except festivall days." As indicating the attention given to the studies of the inns, and the length of the times of probation, it may be well to quote a few examples from codes of rules made for
all the societies during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Philip and Mary, and James the First. Thus, in the time of Philip and Mary,— "that the mote cases in every of the houses of Court, for the vacation time, do not con tain above two points argumentable; and that the same cases be brought in pleading, and the puisne of the bench to recite the whole pleading, according to the ancient orders and custome; and that none of the bench shall argue above two points; and if he do, then the reader shall shew him that he breaketh the common order, and so reform it." In the reign of Elizabeth, — "that none be called to the barr, but such as be of con venient continuance, and have used the exercises of the house, as in arguing cases, putting at bolts, and keeping of the moots and exercises there three years at least, be fore they be called. . . . That in the moots both in the houses of Courts and Chan cery, pleadings be rehearsed and used, as hath been in former times past used; and thereupon to go to the case, but not without the pleading drawn, pleaded, and recited; and that no case in any inne of Chancery do contain above three points or questions at the most, and that the cases be but short." And in James I.'s time there was an order by which, after a recital that the "over early and hasty practice of utterbarristers doth make them less grounded and sufficient, whereby the law may be dis graced and the clyent prejudiced," it was provided " that, for the time to come, no utter barrister begin to practice publicly at any bar at Westminster until he hath been three years at the barr; except such utterbarristers that have been readers in some houses of Chancery." The festivities at the inns formed charac teristic parts of their systems; and some curious regulations were made in relation to these. The following are extracted from a series stated to have been made at' the Inner
