chelors; as the ſtate and degree of a ſerjeant[1], ſervientis ad legem, did to that of doctor.
The crown ſeems to have ſoon taken under it’s protection this infant ſeminary of common law; and, the more effectually to foſter and cheriſh it, king Henry the third in the nineteenth year of his reign iſſued out an order directed to the mayor and ſheriffs of London, commanding that no regent of any law ſchools within that city ſhould for the future teach law therein[2]. The word, law, or leges, being a general term, may create ſome doubt at this diſtance of time whether the teaching of the civil law, or the common, or both, is hereby reſtrained. But in either caſe it tends to the ſame end. If the civil law only is prohibited, (which is Mr Selden’s[3] opinion) it is then a retaliation upon the clergy, who had excluded the common law from their ſeats of learning. If the municipal law be alſo included in the reſtriction, (as ſir Edward Coke[4] underſtands it, and which the words ſeem to import) then the intention is evidently this; by preventing private teachers within the walls of the city, to collect all the common lawyers into the one public univerſity, which was newly inſtituted in the ſuburbs.
- ↑ The firſt mention which I have met with in our lawbooks of ſerjeants or countors, is in the ſtatute of Weſtm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 29. and in Horn’s Mirror, c. 1. §. 10. c. 2. §. 5. c. 3. §. 1. in the ſame reign. But M. Paris in his life of John II, abbot of St. Alban’s, which he wrote in 1255, 39 Hen. III. ſpeaks of advocates at the common law, or countors (quos banci narratores vulgariter appellamus) as of an order of men well known. And we have an example of the antiquity of the coif in the ſame author’s hiſtory of England, A. D. 1259. in the caſe of one William de Buffy; who, being called to account for his great knavery and malpractices, claimed the benefit of his orders or clergy, which till then remained an entire ſecret; and to that end voluit ligamenta coifae ſuae ſolvere, ut palam monſtraret ſe tonſuram habere clericalem; ſed non eſt permiſſus.—Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina ſed per guttur eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem. And hence ſir H. Spelman conjectures, (Gloſſar. 335) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonſure of ſuch renegade clerks, as were ſtill tempted to remain in the ſecular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithſtanding their prohibition by canon.
- ↑ Ne aliquis ſcholas regens de legibus in eadem civitate de caetero ibidem leges doceat.
- ↑ in Flet. 8. 2.
- ↑ 2 Inſt. proëm.
