IN December 1422, an anonymous lawyer put his pen to a fresh quire of paper to record the names of 23 fellows who were required to be present 'here'-no place name is given-over Christmas. This great feast separated two terms in the legal year and there was a stiff fine for absence.
He wrote in French and annotated each name with the number of previous occasions that that individual had attended 'Nowell', some once, some twice and some three times.
In this list, written almost exactly 600 years ago, is to be found the first documentary evidence for the existence of the society of lawyers familiar today as Lincoln's Inn.
To judge from the attendance at previous Christmases, the society had, in fact, been constituted since at least 1420. Other documentary evidence pushes that date back slightly to 1419 and possibly 1417, but whether it was already long-established at that time is not certainly known.
The list is the opening entry in a long series of administrative records compiled by the Inn and collectively known as the Black Books.
They don't appear to have been methodically written up until 1427. In that year, under the heading 'Lyncolnesyn'-significantly, the first unambiguous use of the name as the home of the lawyers in question-there is for the first time a fulsome entry in a new hand, with a prefatory note that speaks of the 'ordinances of the same society'.
It's not clear what those ordinances were or when they were drawn up, but then almost everything about the origins of the four medieval societies of lawyers known as the Inns of Court that have survived to the present day -Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Middle Temple and Inner Temple is slightly mysterious. So, too, are the origins of the smaller Inns of Chancery, so-called, that they eventually swallowed up.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
