Inns of the Temple
| The societies that became the Middle and the Inner Temples were not to enjoy any clear title to the New Temple until the Charter of King James I and VI two hundred and fifty years later. They are likely to have had tenancies from the Hospital of St John, or from whomsoever administered the Temple on the Hospital's behalf. When in the 1570s Sir Edmund Plowden built the Hall that remains the glory of this Inn he built it on what was, following the dissolution of the monasteries, again Crown land. Hence it is less surprising that there is no surviving record of how or when the Inns came to occupy the former Templar lands. The middle years of the 14th century had experienced the Black Death with its very considerable disruption of the organisation and life of society. That two of the law schools should move to the old Halls in an area that already had a strong connection with the law and its practice is readily understandable. Parts of the New Temple were in considerable disrepair when Langeford went into possession so the Halls and adjacent buildings may not have commanded any great rent. Historians have attempted to identify which of the law schools or societies it was that became the two Inns of the Temple but the better view is that to do so is at best speculation. Early references associate the Apprentices of the Common Bench with the Temple: one example being that in 1356 they were pardoned for the death of a servant of the steward of the New Temple. |
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