The Sixteenth Century

The Inn revealed by its early records was already, with the other three Inns, the third university as described by Sir Edward Coke in 1602. The Inns, besides training those who would make the law their career, educated the sons of the nobility and country gentry, as well as for those others who would require some knowledge of the law in their lives. The Inns retained close contacts with the Court and with government and its administration.

Much of the teaching was done in Moots where legal problems were argued in mock courts before the Benchers, a mode of teaching which has not only survived to this day but which has gained new life as today's teaching of advocacy relies heavily upon that ancient format. The students sat within the mock court's "Bar" to listen and so were "Inner Barristers". As they qualified they could advance an argument at the Bar and so became Outer Barristers, or Utter Barristers as the word has come down to us. When todays student member qualifies he or she is called by the Treasurer "to the Degree of the Utter Bar".

The breadth of the subject matter of the older books in the Inn's library attests to the its members' interests and, presumably, to the subjects about which the students might gain information. All the subjects of history, social, economic, political and naturally legal, can be followed in the Inn's rich Archives. The monarch's regulations on such matters as legal education, dress and behaviour are there, including some chiding about the richness of the Inn's Lenten diet.

The Hall was the centre of the Inn's life and was visited by many famous people. Though he cannot be claimed as a member, Sir Francis Drake was frequently here: the Cup Board, the table at which the newly called barristers stand to enter their names in the Inn's books, is made from the forehatch of his "Golden Hind", and until it was destroyed in the bombing of 1941 the lantern of his ship hung in the entrance to Hall. If Drake was not a member, Sir Martin Frobisher and Sir Walter Raleigh were. Perhaps this goes some way to explain the style with which the latter acquitted himself at his trial, though acquittal itself escaped him as it did State prisoners in those times. The Inns appear to been associated with particular areas of the country: this Inn drew many of its members from the West Country. Richard Hakluyt, the author of many accounts of Elizabethan travels and travellers, lived for some time in the Temple.

Hall did not see only solemn occasions: it was the scene for plays and pageants, plays being performed on many of the Inn's great occasions. Twelfth Night was first played there in 1602. There are enough many "Inn" jokes and references in the play to suggest that it was written for that particular audience. The celebrated pageant The Triumph of Peace was staged in 1633. The students of the Inn continued the mediaeval tradition of a period of condoned disorder leading up to Candelmas and presided over by a Prince of Misrule, in the Middle Temple he was called the Prince of Love. There were poets among the Inns members, for those were days when the writing of verse was a necessary social accomplishment, and playwrights there were too. The writing for the Revels of 1594/5 was of such a high standard that a publisher thought it worthy of re-printing in 1660. The custom continues to this day, if in somewhat more decorous form, as each December brings its own Revels.