By Cooper Sarafin and Tristin Turner
Anyone who chose to pursue a career in law and become a barrister or judge in the countries of Enlgand and Wales, had to pass through the Inns of Court, Lincoln’s Inn, Grays Inn, Middle Temple, and Inner Temple, to receive their education.
Inner and Middle Temple are located in what was formerly a Knights Templar compound, split about where the Temple Church is located, as they both has separate sections of the church to use. The Templar Knights, or the Order of Solomon, were a religious organization famous for the fighting prowess in the Crusades. Support for them left following the crusades as people began to fear their power and eventually they had to rescind from London, although a small branch still exists in Malta.
Inner and Middle temple can trace the roots of their organizations back to 1388, just a few years after the Peasants Revolt, as they were mentioned in a yearbook. Later the “Inns stopped being responsible for legal education in 1852, although they continue to provide training in areas such as advocacy and ethics for students, pupil barristers and newly qualified barristers”(wikipedia).
Sources:
César de Saussure. A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II. London: J. Murray, 1902.
The image is a 1830 drawing of the Great Hall in Middle Temple.
Image Credit: Wikipedia