‘ The inns of court man that never was studient’ argues that the contemporary stereotype of the idle and dissolute young inns of court gallant with more interest in playgoing than reading law reports, while doubtless exaggerated for moral and satirical effect, is corroborated by an abundance of biographical evidence.It also reflects two prime causes of student delinquency and disinclination for legal studies: lack of supervision and the intractability of the common law as a subject of study. ‘Guides to Method’ surveys the legal literature available to students, concluding that it offered little assistance to those attempting to navigate the law’s complexities. ‘Lay and Professional Legal Knowledge’ emphasises the gulf between the practising barrister’s expertise and the kinds of legal knowledge which most laymen were likely to need or possess.

Yet members acquired and exercised a remarkably wide range of non-legal accomplishments and skills. ‘Accomplishments and the Decline of Creativity’ argues that the inns did little to encourage such activities, especially after c.1615. ‘Varieties of Learning’ surveys the remarkably diverse intellectual life of the early modern inns, while the closing section ‘Achievements, Failures, Prescriptions’ evaluates their diverse roles as educational institutions, and the few contemporary proposals for their reform.

This chapter maps the continued presence of Roman Catholics at the inns of court, from the accession of Elizabeth and her protestant church settlement of 1559 to the eve of the civil war. ‘Survival and Resurgence’ shows that besides a significant remnant of Catholic lawyerswho had held firm to their traditional beliefs and successfully resisted conformity to the new dispensation, the 1570s saw the arrival of missionary priests charged with reviving the old faith. Besides supporting existing Catholics, they sought new adherents among the gentlemen students of the inns of court, as a vital step towards freeing the country from heresy.

Notwithstanding a battery of increasingly restrictive measures aimed at excluding Catholics from the inns, ‘Quietism and Survival’ shows that papists continued to be admitted and even promoted to the bar and bench. But the anticipated flood of well-born converts did not eventuate, and in the early seventeenth century the failure of Gunpowder Plot saw a more relaxed and tolerant attitude towards Catholics, at the inns as elsewhere, on the part of both government and the inns’ rulers. While both pragmatic and commendably tolerant, this policy stance underestimated the political potency of anti-popish paranoia among the population at large.

After an introductory excursus on the concept of the inns as early modern England’s third university, this chapter outlines the form of legal instruction which they provided by means of oral ‘learning exercises’, notably case-putting in moots and other exercises involving the argument of hypothetical cases in law,and ‘readings’ or lectures at both the inns of court and chancery.

The second section (‘The State of the Learning Exercises to 1640’) considers the supposed decline in the performance of exercises. It argues that even though they may have been rendered largely obsolete by the advent of the printed law-book, there is little to suggest that they were not generally performed in a conscientious and regular fashion before the outbreak of the civil war. But it was one thing to preserve the system as a going concern, quite another to revive it after the disruptions of the 1640s and ‘50s.

After outlining the motivation for a second edition, this opens with a brief account (‘Origins’) of how the book first came to be written and published. It then proceeds to discuss (‘Continuities and Changes’) the 1960s-early ‘70s historiographical context in which it was created and its positive reception on first publication. Some criticisms, questions and suggestions raised by readers and reviewers are also outlined and discussed. The following section (‘New Ways and New Work’) canvasses the impact of the digital revolution on scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, together with the burgeoning of specialised research, and explains how the large body of new work bearing on the history of the early modern inns has been accommodated in the following text.The final section (Future Directions) looks at challenges and opportunities for further research on the inns, addressing a wide range of questions and topics of interest to both general and legal historians.

The first section (‘Centralisation’) traces the consolidation of authority in the hands of the benchers, whose internal supremacy appears to have been of fairly recent origin, and the growing interest of Elizabethan governments in the societies, with the effect of strengthening the benchers’ powers. Before the great expansion of membership, most of the routine administrative chores necessary to keep the societies operating on a day-to-day basis were undertaken by members themselves. But thereafter there was increasing reliance on salaried officers or servants (‘Bureaucratisation’), especially the creation of full-time administrative positions to assist the nominal temporary head of each society, the treasurer. On-going provision of catering and lodging depended on a continuously expanding domestic establishment. However the inns had both a ‘Servant Problem’, and a ‘Management Problem’. Servants depended for much of their income on tips and perquisites, leading to various conflicts of interest, while much of the responsibility for overseeing the societies’ affairs was shouldered by a small minority of benchers. The chapter concludes with a glance at difficulties experienced in managing the societies’ finances, which encouraged the commutation of former academic requirements into cash payments.

‘History and Historiography’ shows that the history of the inns of court has tended to be written from a foreshortened perspective, taking insufficient account of changes in the function and operation of the societies.‘Membership and Residence’ traces the impact of a massive expansion in student enrolments from the mid-sixteenth century, including the resultant shortage of on-site accommodation, while explaining why the nature of the surviving records and the inns’ own distinctive practices and requirements makes it impossible to precisely determine their size as residential institutions during this period. It concludes with a brief account of the changes in ‘Architecture and Topography’ consequent upon the inns’ membership expansion.

‘The Clerical Establishment’ of the inns of court ranged from lowly chaplains who conducted daily services to well-paid pulpit orators appointed as ‘lecturers’ or preachers to deliver regular sermons in the Temple Church and chapels of Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn. The advent of the preacherships and the prominent presbyteriansamong those divineswho first held these positions has been regarded as signalling the strength of puritan zeal at the inns. But ‘The Elizabethan Experiment’ argues that both were actively encouraged by government as an anti-Catholic measure, rather than simply reflecting the benchers’ own religious preferences.

‘Moderates and Radicals’ shows that while most inns’ preachers from 1600 to 1640 were radical protestants, such zealots did not monopolise their pulpits. ‘The Puritan Lay Presence’considers in more detail the religious attitudes of the inns’ lawyer members. While Lincoln’s Inn was the godly brethren’s stronghold, all four houses served as recruiting grounds and points of contact for those committed to further reformation of church and commonwealth. But if a combination of ideological and material forces tended to attract common lawyers to the godly camp, there were always lawyers anxious to support the established church and to reject its more extreme puritan critics.

The nature of whatever ‘Political Education’ was imparted to students at the inns is difficult to determine. While possibly enhancing their political awareness, it did not simply operate in one direction. Historians have been impressed by links between the inns and parliament, but contemporaries were probably more aware of their ties with the royal court. ‘Court Connections’ were manifest in masques presented at court, and associations between prominent courtiers and the inns, as well as between the central government and the inns’ rulers. The most spectacular demonstration of this affinity was the 1634 joint masque, The Triumph of Peace, an extravaganza presented by all four inns in repudiation of William Prynne and his alleged libel against women actresses, including Queen Henrietta Maria.

But ‘Towards Civil War’ shows that the rapprochement between the inns andCharles I’s court was never complete. The inns lay low during the political struggles before the outbreak of hostilities, although an armed band of 500 students offered their services to the king just before his attempted arrest of the 5 members in January 1642.When war did come, the inns’ allegiance was effectively determined by their location in parliamentarian London.

The first section of this chapter, ‘The Scope of Discipline’ traces the fashion in which the benchers initially sought to impose disciplinary constraints on members’ behaviour and demeanour. The growth of the inns after 1550 made it increasingly difficult to police the personal lives of junior members. But the benchers became more anxious to maintain and enhance their own authority, establishing sumptuary regulations on apparel, long hair and beards which emphasised the subordinate status of those below the bench, and sharply escalating measures against casual interpersonal violence within the societies.

They seem to have had some success in eliminating armed assaults, if not other forms of physical violence, while traditional violent behaviour outside the walls of the inns appears to have waned towards the end of our period.However, as ‘The Range of Defiance’ illustrates, collective defiance of and disobedience to the bench became a feature of life from the 1610s onwards, with sporadic outbreaks continuing until the end of the century and beyond, over sumptuary regulations, gambling at Christmas commons, and other issues.

The final section, ‘Authority and Revolt’ proposes that outbreaks of protest and rebellion in the latter half of our period were closely related to the major institutional changes examined in the preceding chapters.