These are certain private unincorporated associations, in the na- ture of collegiate bouses, located in London, and invested with the exclusive privilege of calling men to the bar; that is, conferring the rank or degree of a barrister. They were founded probably about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The principal inns of court are the Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn , and Gray’s lun. (The two former originally belonged to the Knights Templar; the two latter to the earls of Lincoln and Gray respectively .) These bodies now have a ” common council of legal education,” for giving lectures and holding examinations. The inns of chancery , distinguishable from the foregoing, but generally classed with them under the general name, are the buildings known as ” Clifford’s Inn ,” “Clement’s Inn,” “New Inn,” “Staples’ Inn,” and ” Barnard’s Inn .” They were formerly a sort of collegiate houses in which law students learned the elements of law before being admitted into the inns of court, but they have long ceased to occupy that po- sition.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
