A HISTORY OF THE BAR.* UNDER cover of writing a
history of the Serjeants-at-Law, whom he poetically designates as the "Order of the Coif," Mr. Serjeaut Pulling has given us a discourse on the antiquities of the pro- fession of the law in general. The discourse is eminently discursive, and sometimes rather bitter, as the learned Serjeant thinks that he does well to be angry with anyone who has done, said, or thought anything to the disparagement of the Order which he adorns ; and he is particularly wroth with the authors of the sacrilegious Judicature Act, which, by enact- ing that no Judge need be called to the degree of Serjeant-at- Law, has practically put an extinguisher on that illustrious body. However, as the Seijeanta-at-Law straightway seized
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• The Order of the Coifs. By Alexander Pulling, BerisantatIew. London: William Clowee and Son, Limited. 1884.
the occasion for selling their ancient house, and dividing the proceeds amongst them, the pill has presumably been gilded to Sedeant Pulling himself, as well as to his learned brethren. When they have thus divested themselves of their local habitation, and in so doing set an evil precedent to ancient societies and quasi-corporate bodies, they ought not to be so angry with those who have caused the name to disappear also. Its disappearance was inevitable ; and though it may be regretted from an antiquarian, it can hardly be regretted from a practical, point of view. Time was, as the author shows, when the Serjeants-at-Law constituted the whole legal profession ; and the coif was, to the
advocates of those days, all and more than all that the wig is to a barrister nowadays. The origin of the Order of Serjeants-at- Law is "lost in the mists of antiquity," but they were in existence and wearing the coif eight hundred years ago. " Serjeant "
means, of course, simply servant, and has the same origin and meaning as the leas august " sergeant," though the author would fain distinguish them. The Serjeant-at-Law was the servant of the king or the "king's people" in law, just as much as a serjeant-at-mace was a servant to bear the mace ; or as a holder of land in "grand or petit serjeantry," was a person who held land in virtue of his performing a certain service, often menial, such as the famous tenure of the Laird of Bradwardine, who held his lands in consideration of pulling off the King's boots after battle. The Serjeants were appointed by writ from the Crown, and appear to have been at first barrister and solicitor and judge in one. The client always appeared in person, and had no right of appearing by attorney; the Serjeanf-at-Law advised him as to the mode of conducting the snit, and stood by his side in Court and pleaded his case for him ; while the Serjeant was also included in the Commissions of Assize, and the Judges were exclusively chosen from their ranks. In Chaucer's time, the Serjeant appears by implication acting as a solicitor :—
"A serjeant of the law, ware and wise, That often hadde been at the Parvis.
There was also Justice he was ful often in assise, By patent and by plein commission ; For his science and his high renown Of fur and robes had he many on."
"As the Roman advocates paced up and down the Forum Romanum waiting for clients, so the old Serjeant Counters
contenrs, pleaders) were to be found at the Parvis of St. Paul's (afterwards Paul's Walk) with the same object, or engaged at their allotted pillars in consultation after the rising of the Courts." That period was blissfully early, and the sittings blissfully short in old days, as, even in 1466, Fortescue says :— " The Judges of England do not sit above three hours in the day, —that is, from eight in the morning to eleven. The Courts' are not open in the afternoon. The suitors of the Courts betake themselves to the Parvis and other places to advise with the eerjeants-at-law and other their counsel about their affairs." The mention, however, of "other their counsel" shows that the monopoly of the Serjeants-at-Law had then began to be broken in upon. The "apprentices-at-law," the Serjeants' apprentices, that is, the banisters of the present day, had already begun to trespass upon the domain of their masters, while the separa- tion of attorneys and advocates had also commenced. In- deed, in 1455, an Act was passed to restrict the number of attorneys who, in Norwich, Norfolk, and Suffolk, to the number of eighty, "gained their living by paltry stirring-up visits to the detriment of the whole community ;" and it was ordained that henceforth there should be but six common attorneys (why does the learned Serjeant trans- late six by seven P) in either of the said counties, and two in Norwich. But though the attorneys had then become a separate branch of the profession, and were, in 1558, definitely -excluded from membership of the Inns of Court, yet in 1666 we find Dugdale describing the Serjeants as still attending at their pillars in St. Paul's, where each "heard his clients' cause, and took notes thereof upon his knee, as they do at Guildhall to this day ;" and even in Hogarth's "Marriage a la mode" the Coun- sellor is shown in wig and gown taking instructions from the -parties as to the marriage settlement.
The ordinary Counsellor began comparatively early to trench .on the Serje,ant's prerogative ; indeed, as population and busi- ness increased, it was inevitable that they should do so, since _the whole number of Serjeanta, including Judges, only numbered forty. The institution of the Inns of Court as distinct from Serjeants' Inn marks the final separation. It was about Chancer's time, in the reign of Edward Ill., that these Inns took their rise. Serjeants' Inn, in Chancery Lane, existed under the name of Faringdon's Inn, in 1374, and assumed its present name in 1416, though down to 1834 the Serjeants were still only leaseholders. Up to 1758 some of the Serjeants were quartered in Serjeants' Inn, in Fleet Street ; bat their lease having then expired, they joined the larger body in Chancery Lane. In 1873, the Judicature Act provided that the Judges need not be Serjeants-at-Law; and in 1877 the Serjeants, as we have men- tioned, look the extraordinary step of selling their corporate property, and dividing it among their then existing members. The dress of the Serjeants bids fair to prove more lasting than their name. The robes worn by the Judges are really worn by them as Serjeants, and are the same in shape and colour as they appear in the charming old picture, temp. Henry VI., which forms the frontispiece of the book. The seven judges of the Court of Common Pleas at that time were arrayed in the scarlet robes still worn, their learned brethren the Serjeants, who are plead- ing, appearing in parti-coloured blue and green robes of the same shape. This picture shows very clearly, both on pleaders and judges, the distinguishing badge of the order, the coif. It is popularly supposed that the little black patch on the top of a judge's wig is the coil; but the wig of the Judges, like that of the Bar, dated only from Charles II. or William reign, when every one of fashion began to substitute sham for real hair, and the black patcb represents the old three-cornered black cap, not the coif. The real coif is now represented only by the raised rim of white round the black patch. The coif was originally a cap of white lawn or silk, fitting tight to the head, and not re- moved even in the presence of Royalty, the Serjeants-at-Law, like the advocates of the Parliament of Paris, having the " droit de parler converts." "As on the top of the white coif the old fashion had been for the serjeants to wear a small skull-cap of black silk or velvet," as in the well-known picture of Lord Coke as Chief Justice, "the perruquier of the last century continued the round patch of black and white as a diminutive representa- tion of the coif and cap." In fact, the Judge's wig is a three- fold "survival," which we heartily commend to Mr. E. B. Tylor. The costume of the Bar and the black gowns of the Chancery Judges are another survival, being the Court dress worn at the death of Queen Mary, in 1694, "when the Bench and the Bar," with everyone else, "went into mourning," and, unlike everyone else, "have continued in it ever since." The example, however, has now been followed by the world in general ; and it would seem that the full-dress evening costume of male mankind is destined to be a perpetual mourning, while the full-dress morning costume, though still allowed to vary in shape, is also condemned to eternal gloom.
Space does not allow us to follow the author in his somewhat querulous account of how the Queen's Counsel gradually came not merely to trench on the privileges of Serjeants, but to eclipse them altogether. For many ages, the only King's Counsel were the Serjeants, the senior of whom had the especial title of King's Serjeant, and the Attorney-General was merely a King's Serjeant specially representing the King. The Queen's Counsel outside the sacred rank was the invention of Lord Bacon, who wished-to get pay and legal promotion before he was of suffi- cient standing at the Bar to be a Serjeant. He got a special patent as Queen's Counsel Extraordinary, afterwards renewed by James I., with a pension of £40 a year. But the invention was not put into operation again till the time of North, after- wards Earl of Guildford, in 1668. At that time, the Benchers of the Inns had a right of preandience in Court ; but North was refused admission as a Boucher till the Judges took the somewhat strong step of refusing to grant any audience at all to the Benchers of his Inn, the Middle Temple, till they admitted him. No more Q C.'s, however, were appointed till the reign of George I., from which time they have gradually increased in number and importance ; but in 1775, when the Law Lid first made its appearance, they only numbered fourteen, including the King's and Queen's Attorney and Solicitors-General, the whole number of the Bar being (happy days !) only 165, or "considerably less than the number of Queen's Counsel at present." They were really King's Counsel, as they could not hold a brief against the Crown ; and the appointment, with a salary of £40 a year, was an office under the Crown which vacated the seat of Members of Parlia- ment, until Lord Campbell became Attorney-General. To obviate the inconvenience of this, the present patents of precedence were invented, which gave the right of pre- audience without the disabilities. The Serjeants, except in the Common Pleas, where they had exclusive audience down to 1834, yielded precedence to those King's Counsel; and it was for this reason, coupled with the fact that the appointment sounded more distinguished, and cost less to take, besides involving no troublesome formalities, that " the old order changeth, giving place to new." How soon it will be before the new order will give place to a newer, and the 200 Q.C.'s of to-day and the 8,000 "utter Barristers" are again mergedinto the general body of lawyers, and advocates and attorheys are once more united in the same person, it is impossible to say. Orders, and degrees, and privileges have had their day, and the force of circumstances must, in the long run, tend to equality amongst those who "serve the Queen's people at law."
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