Note 60 — ENGLISH LAW AND THE RENAISSANCE.

See Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, 1896 ff.; Calendar of the Records of the Inner Temple, 1896. The records of Gray’s Inn are, so I understand, to be published. See also Philip A. Smith, History of Education for the English Bar, 1860; Joseph Walton, Early History of Legal Studies in England, 1900, read at a meeting of the American Bar Association in 1899. In foreign countries there were gilds or fraternities of lawyers. Thus in Paris the avocats and procureurs about the middle of the fourteenth century formed a fraternity of St Nicholas: ‘dont le chef porte le bâton ou bannière (de là le nom de bâtonnier)’: Brissaud, Histoire du droit français, p. 898. But, though a certain care for the education of apprentices was a natural function of the medieval craft-gild, I cannot find that elsewhere than in England fraternities of legal practitioners took upon themselves to educate students and to give what in effect were degrees, and degrees which admitted to practice in the courts. R. Delachenal, Histoire des avocats au parlement de Paris (Paris, 1885), says that, though not proved, it is probable that already in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the avocat had to be either licencié en lois or licencié en décret: in other words, a legal degree given by an university was necessary for the intending practitioner. As regards the England of the same age two interesting questions might be asked. Was there any considerable number of doctors or bachelors of law who were not clergymen? Had the English judge or the English barrister usually been at an university? I am inclined to think that a negative answer should be given to the first question and perhaps to the second also. Apparently Littleton (to take one example) is not claimed by Oxford or Cambridge.