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 bying 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 of 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 maken him live by his propre good,
In honour detteles, but if he were wood,
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 sette hir aller cappe.”[565]

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.”[566]) 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 the spite they bore to Robert Hales, Master of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, and burnt many deeds which the lawyers there had in their custody. (“Quibus perpetratis, satis malitiose etiam locum qui vocatur Temple Barre, in quo apprenticii juris morabantur nobiliores, diruerunt, ob iram quam conceperant contra Robertum de Hales Magistrum Hospitalis Sancti Johannis Jerusalem, ubi plura munimenta, quæ Juridici in custodiâ habuerunt, igne consumpta sunt.”)[567]

In a subsequent passage, however, he gives us a better clue to the attack upon the Temple, and the burning of the deeds and writings, for he tells us that it was the intention of the rebels to decapitate all the lawyers, for they thought that by destroying them they could put an end to the law, and so be enabled to order matters according to their own will and pleasure. (“Ad decollandum omnes juridicos, escaetores, et universos qui vel in lege docti fuere, vel cum jure ratione officii communicavere. Mente nempe conceperant, doctis in lege necatis, universa juxta communis plebis scitum de cætero ordinare, et nullam omnino legem fore futuram, vel si futura foret, esse pro suorum arbitrio statuenda.”)

It is evident that the lawyers were the immediate successors of the Knights Templars in the occupation of the Temple, as the lessees of the earl of Lancaster.

Whilst the Templars were pining in captivity in the dungeons of London and of York, king Edward the Second paid to their servants and retainers the pensions they had previously received from the treasury of the Temple, on condition that they continued to perform the services and duties they had rendered to their antient masters. On the 26th of November, A. D. 1311, he granted to Robert Styfford, clerk, for his maintenance in the house of the Temple at London, two deniers a day, and five shillings a year for necessaries, provided he did service in the church; and when unable to do so, he was to receive only his food and lodging. Geoffrey Talaver was to receive, in the same house of the Temple, three deniers a day for his sustenance, and twenty shillings a year for necessaries, during the remainder of his life; also one denier a day for the support of his boy, and five shillings a year for his wages. Geoffrey de Cave, clerk, and John de Shelton, were also, each of them, to receive from the same house, for their good services, an annual pension of forty shillings for the term of their lives.[568] Some of these retainers, in addition to their various stipends, were to have a gown of the class of free-serving brethren of the order of the Temple[569] each year; one old garment out of the stock of old garments belonging to the brethren;[570] one mark a year for their shoes, &c.; their sons also received so much per diem, on condition that they did the daily work of the house. These retainers were of the class of free servants of office; they held their posts for life, and not being members of the order of the Temple, they were not included in the general proscription of the fraternity. In return for the provision made them by the king, they were to continue to do their customary work as long as they were able.

Now it is worthy of remark, that many of the rules, customs, and usages of the society of Knights Templars are to this day observed in the Temple, naturally leading us to conclude that these domestics and retainers of the antient brotherhood became connected with the legal society formed therein, and transferred their services to that learned body.

From the time of Chaucer to the present day, the lawyers have dined together in the antient hall, as the military monks did before them; and the rule of their order requiring “two and two to eat together,” and “all the fragments to be given in brotherly charity to the domestics,” is observed to this day, and has been in force from time immemorial. The attendants at table, moreover, are still called paniers, as in the days of the Knights Templars.[571] The leading punishments of the Temple, too, remain the same as in the olden time. The antient Templar, for example, for a light fault, was “withdrawn from the companionship of his fellows,” and not allowed “to eat with them at the same table,”[572] and the modern Templar, for impropriety of conduct, is “expelled the hall” and “put out of commons.” The brethren of the antient fraternity were, for grave offences, in addition to the above punishment, deprived of their lodgings,[573] and were compelled to sleep with the beasts in the open court; and the members of the modern fellowship have in bygone times, as a mode of punishment, been temporarily deprived of their chambers in the Temple for misconduct, and padlocks have been put upon the doors. The Master and Chapter of the Temple, in the time of the Knights Templars, exercised the power of imprisonment and expulsion from the fellowship, and the same punishments have been freely used down to a recent period by the Masters of the Bench of the modern societies. Until of late years, too, the modern Templars have had their readers, officers of great dignity, whose duty it has been to read and expound LAW in the hall, at and after meals, in the same way as the readers of the Knights Templars read and expounded RELIGION.