INN, a place appointed for the relief and entertainment of travellers.

Inns. Our colleges of municipal or common law professors and students, are called inns ; this being the old English word for houses of noblemen, bishops, and others of extraordinary note, and of the same signification with the French word hotels. Inns of Court are so called, according to some, because the students there are to serve and attend the courts of judicature; or because these colleges anciently received none but the sons of noblemen, and the better sort of gentlemen, who, as Fortescue affirms, were to be there qualified to serve the king in his court. In the time of Fortescue, there were about two thousand students in the inns of court and chancery, all of whom were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born. But this custom gradually fell into disuse; so that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke does not reckon above one thousand students, and the number at present is very considerably less. For this Judge Blackstone assigns the following reasons: 1. Because the inns of chancery, being now almost totally filled by the inferior branches of the profession, are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there arc very rarely any young students [7:12:282]entered at the inns of chancery. 2. Because in the inns of court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, have been found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected. 3. Because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction; wherefore few gentlemen now resort to the inns of court, except those for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary in such as are intended for the profession.

Our inns of court, justly famed for the production of men of learning in the law, are governed by masters, principals, benchers, stewards, and other officers; and they have public halls for exercises, readings, and the like, which the students are obliged to attend for a certain number of years, before they can be admitted to plead at the bar. These societies have not, however, any judicial authority over their members; but instead of this there exist among themselves certain orders or regulations, which have by consent the force of laws. For lighter offences persons are only excommoned, or put out of commons; for greater, they lose their chambers, and are expelled the college; and when once expelled out of one society, they are never received by any of the others. The gentlemen in these societies maybe divided into benchers, outer-barristers, inner-barristers, and students.

The four principal inns of court are, the Inner Temple and Middle Temple, formerly the dwelling of the Knights Templars; and Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn, which anciently belonged to the Earls of Lincoln and Gray. The other inns are the two Serjeants’ Inns.

Inns of Chancery were probably so called, because anciently inhabited by such clerks as chiefly studied the forming of writs, which regularly belonged to the cursitors, who are of chancery.

The first of these is Thavies Inn, begun in the reign of Edward III., and afterwards purchased by the society of Lincoln’s Inn. Besides this, there are New Inn, Symond’s Inn, Clement’s Inn, Clifford’s Inn, Staple Inn, belonging to the merchants of the staple; Lion’s Inn, anciently a common inn with the sign of the lion; Furnival’s Inn, and Bernard’s Inn.

Heretofore these were preparatory colleges for younger students; and many were entered there, before they were admitted into the inns of court. Now they are mostly occupied by attorneys, solicitors, and others. They all belong to one or other of the inns of court, who formerly used to send yearly some of their barristers to read to them.