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Knight of Jerusalem
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After the return of this inquisition, the said sanctified places were assigned to the prior and brethren of the Hospital of Saint John; and the king, on the 11th of January, in the tenth year of his reign, A.D. 1337, directed his writ to the barons of the Exchequer, commanding them to take inquisition of the value of the said sanctified places, so given up to the Hospitaliers, and of the residue of the Temple, and certify the same under their seals to the king, in order that a reasonable abatement might be made in William de Langford's rent. From the inquiry made in pursuance of this writ before John de Shorditch, a baron of the Exchequer, it further appears that on the said residue of the Temple upon the land then remaining in the custody of William de Langford, and withinside the great gate of the Temple, were another HALL * and four chambers connected therewith, a kitchen, a garden, a stable, and a chamber beyond the great gate; also eight shops, seven of which stood in Fleet Street, and the eighth in the suburb of London, without the bar of the New Temple; that the annual value of these shops varied from ten to thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen shillings; that the fruit out of the garden of the Temple sold for sixty shillings per annum in the gross; that seven out of the thirteen houses erected by Roger Blom were each of the annual value of eleven shillings; and that the eighth, situated beyond the gate of entrance to the church, was worth four marks per annum. It appears, moreover, that the total annual revenue of the Temple then amounted to 73l. 6s. 11d.,
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equal to about 1,000l. of our present money, and that William de Langford was abated 12l. 4s. 2d. of his said rent. *
Three years after the taking of this inquisition, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, A.D. 1340, king Edward the Third in consideration of the sum of one hundred pounds, which the prior of the Hospital promised to pay him towards the expense of his expedition into France, granted to the said prior all the residue of the Temple then remaining in the king's hands, to hold, together with the cemetery, cloisters, and the other sanctified places, to the said prior and his brethren, and their successors, of the king and his heirs, for charitable purposes, for ever. † From the above grant it appears that the porter of the Temple received sixty shillings and tenpence per annum, and twopence a day wages, which were to be paid him by the Hospitaliers.
At this period Philip Thane was prior of the Hospital; and he appears to have exerted himself to impart to the celebration of divine service in the Temple Church, the dignity and the splendour it possessed in the time of the Templars. He, with the unanimous consent and approbation of the whole chapter of the Hospital, granted to Brother Hugh de Lichefeld, priest, and to his successors, guardians of the Temple Church, towards the improvement of the lights and the celebration of divine service therein, all the land called Ficketzfeld, and the garden called Cotterell Garden; ‡ a and two years afterwards he made a further grant, to the said Hugh and his successors, of a thousand-fagots a year to be cut of the wood of Lilleston, and carried to the New Temple to keep up the fire in the said church. §
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King Edward the Third, in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, A.D. 1362, notwithstanding the grant of the Temple to the Hospitallers, exercised the right of appointing to the porter's office, and by his letters patent he promoted Roger Small to that post for the term of his life, in return for the good service rendered him by the said Roger Small. *
It is at this period that the first distinct mention of a society of lawyers in the Temple occurs.
The poet Chaucer, who was born at the close of the reign of Edward the Second, A.D. 1327, and was in high favour at court in the reign of Edward the Third, thus speaks of the MANCIPLE, or the purveyor of provisions of the lawyers in the Temple:
"A gentil Manciple was there of the TEMPLE,
Of whom achatours mighten take ensemple,
For to ben wise in hying of vitaille.
For whether that he paid or toke by taille,
Algate he waited so in his achate,
That he was aye before in good estate.
Now is not that of God a full fayre grace,
That swiche a lewed mannes wit shal pace,
The wisdome of an hepe of lerned men?"
"Of maisters had he mo than thries ten,
THAT WERE OP LAWE EXPERT AND CURIOUS:
Of which there was a dosein in that hous
Worthy to ben stewardes of rent and lond
Of any lord that is in Englelond,
To waken him live by his propre good,
In honour detteles, but if he were wood, p. 357
Or live as scarsly, as him list desire;
And able for to helpen all a shire,
In any cas that mighte fallen or happe;
And yet this manciple cette hir aller cappe." *
It appears, therefore, that the lawyers in the Temple, in the reign of Edward the Third, had their purveyor of provisions as at this day, and were consequently then keeping commons, or dining together in hall.
In the fourth year of the reign of Richard the Second, A.D. 1381, a still more distinct notice occurs of the Temple, as the residence of the learners and the learned in the law.
We are told in an antient chronicle, written in Norman French, formerly belonging to the abbey of St. Mary's at York, that the rebels under Wat Tyler went to the Temple and pulled down the houses, and entered the church and took all the books and the rolls of remembrances which were in the chests of the LEARNERS OF THE LAW in the Temple, and placed them under the large chimney and burnt them. (Les rebels alleront a le TEMPLE et jetteront les measons a la terre et avegheront tighles, issint que ils fairont coverture en mal array; et alleront en l’esglise, et pristeront touts les liveres et rolles de remembrances, que furont en leur huches deins LE TEMPLE DE APPRENTICES DE LA LEY; et porteront en le haut chimene et les arderont." †) And Walsingham, who wrote in the reign of Henry the Sixth, about fifty years after the occurrence of these events, tells us that after the rebels, under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, had burnt the Savoy, the noble palace of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, they pulled down the place called Temple Barr, where the apprentices or learners of the highest branch of the profession of the law dwelt, on account of
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