The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

“Although there be two several societies, yet in sundry places they are promiscuously lodged together without any metes or bounds to distinguish them, and the ground rooms in some places belong to the new house, and the upper rooms to the old one, a manifest argument that both made at first but one house, nor did they either before or after this division claim by several leases, but by one entire grant. And as they took their diet apart, so likewise were they stationed apart in the church, viz. those of the Middle Temple on the left hand side as you go therein, and those of the old house on the right hand side, and so it remains between them at this day.”587

Burton, the antiquary, who wrote in the reign of queen Elizabeth, speaks of this “old house” (the Inner Temple) as “the mother and most antient of all the other houses of courts, to which,” says he, “I must acknowledge all due respect, being a fellow thereof, admitted into the same society on the 20th of May, 1593.”588 The two societies of the Temple are of equal antiquity; the members in the first instance dined together in one or other of the antient halls of the Templars as it suited their convenience and inclination; and to this day, in memory of the old custom, the benchers or antients of the one society dine once every year in the hall of the other society. The period of the division has been generally referred to the commencement of the reign of Henry the Sixth, as at the close of that long reign the present four Inns of Court were all in existence, and then contained about two thousand students. The Court of King’s Bench, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court of Chancery, had then encroached upon the jurisdiction of the Common Pleas, and had taken cognizance of civil causes between subject and subject, which were formerly decided in that court alone.589 The legal business of the country had consequently greatly increased, the profession of the law became highly honourable, and the gentry and the nobility considered the study of it a necessary part of education.

Sir John Fortescue, who was chief justice of the King’s Bench during half the reign of Henry the Sixth, in his famous discourse de laudibus legum Angliæ, tells us that in his time the annual expenses of each law-student amounted to more than 28l., (equal to about 450l. of our present money,) that all the students of the law were gentlemen by birth and fortune, and had great regard for their character and honour; that in each Inn of Court there was an academy or gymnasium, where singing, music, and dancing, and a variety of accomplishments, were taught. Law was studied at stated periods, and on festival days: after the offices of the church were over, the students employed themselves in the study of history, and in reading the Holy Scriptures. Everything good and virtuous was there taught, vice was discouraged and banished, so that knights, barons, and the greatest of the nobility of the kingdom, placed their sons in the Temple and the other Inns of Court; and not so much, he tells us, to make the law their study, or to enable them to live by the profession, as to form their manners and to preserve them from the contagion of vice. “Quarrelling, insubordination, and murmuring, are unheard of; if a student dishonours himself, he is expelled the society; a punishment which is dreaded more than imprisonment and irons, for he who has been driven from one society is never admitted into any of the others; whence it happens, that there is a constant harmony amongst them, the greatest friendship, and a general freedom of conversation.”

The two societies of the Temple are now distinguished by the several denominations of the Inner and the Middle Temple, names that appear to have been adopted with reference to a part of the antient Temple, which, in common with other property of the Knights Templars, never came into the hands of the Hospitallers. After the lawyers of the Temple had separated into two bodies and occupied distinct portions of ground, this part came to be known by the name of the outward Temple, as being the farthest away from the city, and is thus referred to in a manuscript in the British Museum, written in the reign of James the First. – “A third part, called outward Temple, was procured by one Dr. Stapleton, bishop of Exeter, in the days of king Edward the Second, for a residing mansion-house for him and his successors, bishops of that see. It was called Exeter Inn until the reign of the late queen Mary, when the lord Paget, her principal secretary of state, obtained the said third part, called Exeter-house, to him and his heirs, and did re-edify the same. After whom the said third part of the Templar’s house came to Thomas late duke of Norfolk, and was by him conveyed to Sir Robert Dudley, knight, earl of Leicester, who bequeathed the same to Sir Robert Dudley, knight, his son, and lastly, by purchase, came to Robert late earl of Essex, who died in the reign of the late queen Elizabeth, and is still called Essex-house.”590

When the lawyers came into the Temple, they found engraved upon the antient buildings the armorial bearings of the Knights Templars, which were, on a shield argent, a plain cross gules, and (brochant sur le tout) the holy lamb bearing the banner of the order, surmounted by a red cross. These arms remained the emblem of the Temple until the fifth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, when unfortunately the society of the Inner Temple, yielding to the advice and persuasion of Master Gerard Leigh, a member of the College of Heralds, abandoned the antient and honourable device of the Knights Templars, and assumed in its place a galloping winged horse called a Pegasus, or, as it has been explained to us, “a horse striking the earth with its hoof, or Pegasus luna on a field argent!” Master Gerard Leigh, we are told, “emblazoned them with precious stones and planets, and by these strange arms he intended to signify that the knowledge acquired at the learned seminary of the Inner Temple would raise the professors of the law to the highest honours, adding, by way of motto, volat ad æthera virtus, and he intended to allude to what are esteemed the more liberal sciences, by giving them Pegasus forming the fountain of Hippocrene, by striking his hoof against the rock, as a proper emblem of lawyers becoming poets, as Chaucer and Gower, who were both of the Temple!”

The society of the Middle Temple, with better taste, still preserves, in that part of the Temple over which its sway extends, the widely-renowned and time-honoured badge of the antient order of the Temple.

The assumption of the prancing winged horse by the one society, and the retention of the lamb by the other, have given rise to the following witty lines —

“As thro’ the Templars’ courts you go,The lamb and horse displayed,The emblematic figures showThe merits of their trade.That clients may infer from henceHow just is their profession;The lamb denotes their INNOCENCE,The horse their EXPEDITION.Oh, happy Britain! happy isle!Let foreign nations say,Here you get justice without guile,And law without delay.”ANSWER“Unhappy man! those courts forego,Nor trust such cunning elves,The artful emblems only showTheir clients, not themselves.These all are tricks,These all are shams,With which they mean to cheat ye,But have a care, for you’re the LAMBS,And they the wolves that eat ye.Nor let the plea of no delayTo these their courts misguide ye,For you’re the PRANCING HORSE; and theyThe jockeys that would ride you!”

CHAPTER XIV.

THE TEMPLE

The Temple Garden – The erection of new buildings in the Temple – The dissolution of the order of the Hospital of Saint John – The law societies become lessees of the crown – The erection of the magnificent Middle Temple Hall – The conversion of the old hall into chambers – The grant of the inheritance of the Temple to the two law societies – Their magnificent present to his Majesty – Their antient orders and customs, and antient hospitality – Their grand entertainments – Reader’s feasts – Grand Christmasses and Revels – The fox-hunt in the hall – The dispute with the Lord Mayor – The quarrel with the custos of the Temple Church.

“Plantagenet.Great lords and gentlemen, what means this silence?Dare no man answer in a case of truth?Suffolk.Within the Temple Hall we were too loud:The GARDEN here is more convenient.”

Shakspeare makes the Temple Garden, which is to this day celebrated for the beauty and profusion of its flowers, the scene of the choice of the white and red roses, as the badges of the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Richard Plantagenet and the earl of Somerset retire with their followers from the hall into the garden, where Plantagenet thus addresses the silent and hesitating bystanders:

“Since you are tongue-ty’d, and so loath to speak,In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:Let him, that is a true-born gentleman,And stands upon the honour of his birth,If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.Somerset. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,But dare maintain the party of the truth,Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.Warwick. I love no colours; and, without all colourOf base insinuating flattery,I pluck this white rope with Plantagenet.Suffolk. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,And say withal I think he held the right.········Vernon. Then for the truth and plainness of the case,I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,Giving my verdict on the white rose side.Somerset. … Come on, who else?Lawyer. Unless my study and my books be false,The argument you held was wrong in you;In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too. [To Somerset.········Warwick… This brawl to-day,Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,Shall send, between the red rose and the white,A thousand souls to death and deadly night.”

In the Cotton Library is a manuscript written at the commencement of the reign of Henry the Eighth, entitled “A description of the Form and Manner, how, and by what Orders and Customs the State of the Fellowshyppe of the Myddil Temple is maintained, and what ways they have to attaine unto Learning.”591 It contains a great deal of curious information concerning the government of the house, the readings, mot-yngs, boltings, and other exercises formerly performed for the advancement of learning, and of the different degrees of benchers, readers, cupboard-men, inner-barristers, utter-barristers, and students, together with “the chardges for their mete and drynke by the yeare, and the manner of the dyet, and the stipende of their officers.” The writer tells us that it was the duty of the “Tresorer to gather of certen of the fellowship a tribute yerely of iiis. iiid. a piece, and to pay out of it the rent due to my lord of Saint John’s for the house that they dwell in.”

“Item; they have no place to walk in, and talk and confer their learnings, but in the church; which place all the terme times hath in it no more of quietnesse than the perwyse of Pawles, by occasion of the confluence and concourse of such as be suters in the lawe.” The conferences between lawyers and clients in the Temple Church are thus alluded to by Butler:

“Retain all sorts of witnessesThat ply in the Temple under trees,Or walk the Round with knights of the posts,About the cross-legged knights their hosts.”

“Item; they have every day three masses said one after the other, and the first masse doth begin at seaven of the clock, or thereabouts. On festivall days they have mattens and masse solemnly sung; and during the matyns singing they have three masses said.”592

At the commencement of the reign of Henry VIII. a wall was built between the Temple Garden and the river; the Inner Temple Hall was “seeled,” various new chambers were erected, and the societies expended sums of money, and acted as if they were absolute proprietors of the Temple, rather than as lessees of the Hospitallers of Saint John.

In 32 Hen. VIII. was passed the act of parliament dissolving the order of the Hospital, and vesting all the property of the brethren in the crown, saving the rights and interests of lessees, and others who held under them.

The two law societies consequently now held of the crown.

In 5 Eliz. the present spacious and magnificent Middle Temple Hall, one of the most elegant and beautiful structures in the kingdom, was commenced, (the old hall being converted into chambers;) and in the reigns both of Mary and Elizabeth, various buildings and sets of chambers were erected in the Inner and Middle Temple, at the expense of the Benchers and members of the two societies. All this was done in full reliance upon the justice and honour of the crown. In the reign of James I., however, some Scotchman attempted to obtain from his majesty a grant of the fee-simple or inheritance of the Temple, which being brought to the knowledge of the two societies, they forthwith made “humble suit” to the king, and obtained a grant of the property to themselves. By letters patent, bearing date at Westminster the 13th of August, in the sixth year of his reign, A. D. 1609, king James granted the Temple to the Benchers of the two societies, their heirs and assigns for ever, for the lodging, reception, and education of the professors and students of the laws of England, the said Benchers yielding and paying to the said king, his heirs, and successors, ten pounds yearly for the mansion called the Inner Temple, and ten pounds yearly for the Middle Temple.593

In grateful acknowledgment of this donation, the two societies caused to be made, at their mutual cost, “a stately cup of pure gold, weighinge two hundred ounces and an halfe, of the value of one thousand markes, or thereabouts, the which in all humbleness was presented to his excellent majestie att the court att Whitehall, in the said sixth year of his majestie’s raigne over the realme of England, for a new yeare’s gifte, by the hands of the said sir Henry Mountague, afterwards baron Mountague, viscount Mandevil, the earl of Manchester, Richard Daston, esq., and other eminent persons of both those honourable societies, the which it pleased his majesty most gratiously to accept and receive… Upon one side of this cup is curiously engraven the proporcion of a church or temple beautified, with turrets and pinnacles, and on the other side is figured an altar, whereon is a representation of a holy fire, the flames propper, and over the flames these words engraven, Nil nisi vobis. The cover of this rich cup of gold is in the upper parte thereof adorned with a fabrick fashioned like a pyramid, whereon standeth the statue of a military person leaning, with the left hand upon a Roman-fashioned shield or target, the which cup his excellent majestie, whilst he lived, esteemed for one of his roialest and richest jewells.”594

Some of the antient orders and regulations for the government of the two societies are not unworthy of attention.

From the record of a parliament holden in the Inner Temple on the 15th of November, 3 and 4 Ph. and Mary, A. D. 1558, it appears that eight gentlemen of the house, in the previous reading vocation, “were committed to the Fleete for wilfull demenoure and disobedience to the Bench, and were worthyly expulsed the fellowshyppe of the house, since which tyme, upon their humble suite and submission unto the said Benchers of the said house, it is agreed that they shall be readmitted into the fellowshyppe, and into commons again, without payeing any ffine.”595

Amongst the ancient customs and usages derived from the Knights Templars, which were for a lengthened period religiously preserved and kept up in the Temple, was the oriental fashion of long beards. In the reign of Philip and Mary, at the personal request of the queen, attempts were made to do away with this time-honoured custom, and to limit

THE LENGTH OF A LAWYER’S BEARD

On the 22nd of June, 3 and 4 Philip and Mary, A. D. 1557, it was ordered that none of the companies of the Inner and Middle Temple, under the degree of a knight being in commons, should wear their beards above three weeks growing, upon pain of XLs., and so double for every week after monition. They were, moreover, required to lay aside their arms, and it was ordered “that none of the companies, when they be in commons, shall wear Spanish cloak, sword and buckler, or rapier, or gownes and hats, or gownes girded with a dagger;” also, that “none of the COMPANIONS, except Knights or Benchers, should thenceforth wear in their doublets or hoses any light colours, except scarlet and crimson; or wear any upper velvet cap, or any scarf, or wings on their gownes, white jerkyns, buskins or velvet shoes, double cuffs on their shirts, feathers or ribbens on their caps”! That no attorney should be admitted into either of the houses, and that, in all admissions from thenceforth, it should be an implied condition, that if the party admitted “should practyse any attorneyship,” he was ipso facto dismissed.596

In 1 Jac. I., it was ordered, in obedience to the commands of the king, that no one should be admitted a member of either society who was not a gentleman by descent; – that none of the gentlemen should come into the hall “in cloaks, boots, spurs, swords, or daggers;” and it was publicly declared that their “yellow bands, and ear toyes, and short cloaks, and weapons,” were “much disliked and forbidden.”

In A. D. 1623, king James recommended the antient way of wearing caps to be carefully observed; and the king was pleased to take notice of the good order of the house of the Inner Temple in that particular. His majesty was further pleased to recommend that boots should be laid aside as ill befitting gownsmen; “for boots and spurs,” says his majesty, “are the badges rather of roarers than of civil men, who should use them only when they ride. Therefore we have made example in our own court, that no boots shall come into our presence.”

The modern Templars for a long period fully maintained the antient character and reputation of the Temple for sumptuous and magnificent hospitality, although the venison from the royal forests, and the wine from the king’s cellars,597 no longer made its periodical appearance within the walls of the old convent. Sir John Fortescue alludes to the revels and pastimes of the Temple in the reign of Henry VI., and several antient writers speak of the grand Christmasses, the readers’ feasts, the masques, and the sumptuous entertainments afforded to foreign ambassadors, and even to royalty itself. Various dramatic shows were got up upon these occasions, and the leading characters who figured at them were the “Marshall of the Knights Templars!” the constable marshall, the master of the games, the lieutenant of the Tower, the ranger of the forest, the lord of misrule, the king of Cockneys, and Jack Straw!

The Constable Marshall came into the hall on banqueting days “fairly mounted on his mule,” clothed in complete armour, with a nest of feathers of all colours upon his helm, and a gilt pole-axe in his hand. He was attended by halberdiers, and preceded by drums and fifes, and by sixteen trumpeters, and devised some sport “for passing away the afternoon.”

The Master of the Game, and the Ranger of the Forest, were apparelled in green velvet and green satin, and had hunting horns about their necks, with which they marched round about the fire, “blowing three blasts of venery.”

The most remarkable of all the entertainments was the hunt in the hall, when the huntsman came in with his winding horn, dragging in with him a cat, a fox, a purse-net, and nine or ten couple of hounds! The cat and the fox were both tied to the end of a staff, and were turned loose into the hall; they were hunted with the dogs amid the blowing of hunting horns, and were killed under the grate!!

The quantity of venison consumed on these festive occasions, particularly at the readers’ feasts, was enormous. In the reign of Queen Mary, it was ordered by the benchers of the Middle Temple, that no reader should spend less than fifteen bucks in the hall, and this number was generally greatly exceeded: “there be few summer readers,” we are informed in an old MS. account of the readers’ feasts, “who, in half the time that heretofore a reading was wont to continue, spent so little as threescore bucks, besides red deer; some have spent fourscore, some a hundred…”598 The lawyers in that golden age breakfasted on “brawn and malmsey,” and supped on “venison pasties and roasted hens!” Among the viands at dinner were “faire and large bores’ heads served upon silver platters, with minstralsye, roasted swans, bustards, herns, bitterns, turkey chicks, curlews, godwits, &c. &c.”

The following observations concerning the Temple, and a grand entertainment there, in the reign of Queen Mary, will be read with interest. “Arriuing in the faire river of Thames, I landed within halfe a leage from the city of London, which was, as I coniecture, in December last. And drawing neere the citie, sodenly hard the shot of double cannons, in so great a number, and so terrible, that it darkened the whole aire, wherewith, although I was in my native countrie, yet stoode I amazed, not knowing what it ment. Thus, as I abode in despaire either to returne or to continue my former purpose, I chaunced to see comming towardes me an honest citizen, clothed in long garment, keping the highway, seming to walke for his recreation, which prognosticated rather peace than perill. Of whom I demaunded the cause of this great shot, who frendly answered, ‘It is the warning shot to th’ officers of the Constable Marshall of the Inner Temple to prepare to dinner!’ Why, said I, is he of that estate, that seeketh not other meanes to warn his officers, then with such terrible shot in so peaceable a countrey? Marry, saith he, he vttereth himselfe the better to be that officer whose name he beareth. I then demanded what prouince did he gouerne that needeth such an officer. Hee answered me, the prouince was not great in quantitie, but antient in true nobilitie; a place, said he, priuileged by the most excellent princess, the high gouernour of the whole land, wherein are store of gentilmen of the whole realme, that repaire thither to learne to rule, and obey by LAWE, to yeelde their fleece to their prince and common weale, as also to vse all other exercises of bodie and minde whereunto nature most aptly serueth to adorne by speaking, countenance, gesture, and vse of apparel, the person of a gentleman; whereby amitie is obtained and continued, that gentilmen of al countries in theire young yeares, norished together in one place, with such comely order and daily conference, are knit by continual acquaintance in such vnitie of mindes and manners, as lightly neuer after is seuered, then which is nothing more profitable to the commonweale.

“And after he had told me thus much of honor of the place, I commended in mine own conceit the pollicie of the gouernour, which seemed to vtter in itselfe the foundation of a good commonweale. For that the best of their people from tender yeares trayned vp in precepts of justice, it could not chose but yeelde forth a profitable people to a wise commonweale. Wherefore I determined with myselfe to make proofe of that I heard by reporte.

“The next day I thought for my pastime to walke to this Temple, and entering in at the gates, I found the building nothing costly; but many comly gentlemen of face and person, and thereto very courteous, saw I passe too and fro. Passing forward, I entered into a church of auncient building, wherein were many monumentes of noble personnages armed in knighteley habite, with their cotes depainted in auncient shieldes, whereat I took pleasure to behold…

“Anon we heard the noise of drum and fyfe. What meaneth this drumme? said I. Quod he, this is to warn gentlemen of the household to repaire to the dresser; wherefore come on with me, and yee shall stand where ye may best see the hall serued; and so from thence brought me into a long gallerie that stretcheth itselfe alongest the hall, neere the prince’s table, where I saw the prince set, a man of tall personage, of mannelye countenance, somewhat browne of visage, strongelie featured, and thereto comelie proportioned. At the neather end of the same table were placed the ambassadors of diuers princes. Before him stood the caruer, seruer, and cup-bearer, with great number of gentlemen wayters attending his person. The lordes steward, treasorer, with diuers honorable personages, were placed at a side-table neere adjoyning the prince on the right hand, and at another table on the left side were placed the treasorer of the household, secretarie, the prince’s serjeant of law, the four masters of the reaulles, the king of armes, the deane of the chapell, and diuers gentlemen pentioners to furnish the same. At another table, on the other side, were set the maister of the game, and his chiefe ranger, maisters of household, clerkes of the greene cloth and checke, with diuers other strangers to furnish the same. On the other side, againste them, began the table of the lieutenant of the Tower, accompanied with diuers captaines of footbandes and shot. At the neather ende of the hall, began the table of the high butler and panter, clerkes of the kitchen, maister cooke of the priue kitchen, furnished throughout with the souldiours and guard of the prince…