OCR Text |
Show 20 INTRODUCTION. which have long since vani --bed, could n ver be con idered as having stood on a par with the three othCl"', the judge of which esteemed them elves the grnncl depo itarie .. of the knowledrre of the common or unwritten law of Englanu; that 0 is, of such custom and forms a had obtained the force of law previou to the existence of the regular seric of tatntes beginning with 1\Iagnn. Charta. Indeed, thef'e judge of England, a they were called, were in the habit of n1eetiug tog~thcr in the Exchequer Chan1ber, for the purpose of hearing arguments on law points of importance or difficulty, adjourned thither for their consideration, and which th y d cide l by a majority of their whole nun1ber pre"'ent, thu pre enting down to the recent abolition, or rather modification, of the Court of Exchequer Chan1ber, a hadow, as it 'vcre, of the ancient Aula Regis. Already, previous to this fracture of the Aula Rcgi inlo the various courts above named, the l<.)gal profcs ion, so far as practice in the lay court· wa concerned, had begun to separate it~eJf from the clerical; and place for the edncation and re idence of a cla s of laymen who began to devote themselves to the study of the common law were e. tabli~hed in the vicinity of 1Vestminster I-Iall. Of these, Lincoln' .. Inn, founded at the commencement of the r eign of Edward. II., (abouL A. D. 1307,) under the patronag of \ViUia1n Earl of Lincoln, who gave up hi .. own ho tel or town re idence for that purpose, was the earlie t, and has alway r enu1ined the principal. On this Inoclel were established before long the Inner antl 1\Iiddlc Temple, (. o called because a re idence of the J{nio-hts Tcm- o plars, forfeited by the di solu tion of that order, had been de-voted to this purpose,) Gray's Inn, Smj eant's Inn, and the Inns of Chancery. INTRODUCTION. 21 Such was the orig in of the profession of law as it still exists in England and America; of that body of lawyers whence all our judges a re taken, arrogating to it elf; after the example of the churchn1en, of which it originally con isted, a certain my tical enlightenment and uperiority, scouting the idea that the laity, as the lawyers too affect to di tingui:::;h all persons not of their cloth, -in plain EnglifSb, the people, should. pre ume to express or to entertain any independent opinion upon matters of law, or that any body not a profe sional lawyer can possibly be qualified for the comprehension, and lnuch le for the aumini t ralion, of j u ·tice. In the Anglo-Saxon courts Lhc parties had appeared personally, and pleading had been oral. The Anglo-Norman practice gave rise to appearance by attorney in all civil cases, and to that systen1 of pecial written pleading"', prepared by counsel learned in the law, of which the operation was to g ive the victory to ingenuity and learning rather than to right, and which, after unJergoing many modifications, has at length been abolished in many of our Anglo-American states, as an in1peJi1nent to ju Lice and an intolerable nui ·ance. Even in con ervative England itself, though the ystem of special pleaclings, greatly modified by modern changes, still exist.,, the r ecent return, by the exmnination of the parties, to the old popular sy terr1 of oral pleading has been attended by the happie. t result . The preparation of these written pleadings, by which we are here to understand not arguments, but allegations of facts relied upon by the respective parties, was engros. ed by the serjeants at law, whose di ·tinguishing badge wa a coif or velvet cap- wigs being a comparatively modern invention. To obtain admittance into this order, by which the entire practice |