The Temple contained an inner consecrated area, which was occupied by the Knights, and some houses adjacent on the west owned by them, but not improbably occupied by students of the law. It appears that when the manor was handed over to the Knights of St. John the King retained part of it, which, however, in 1338, he allowed them to purchase for £100, and from that date we read no more of the chancery being held in the Temple Church. In gratitude to William de Langeford, whose services had secured to the Order the restitution of their property, the prior granted him a lease of "all their messuages and places of the sometime Temple lying from the lane called Chauncellereslane to the Templebarre without the gates of the New Temple." This lease was dated June 11th, 1339,[119] and the lawyers have held the property ever since.
The consecrated and secular areas may, perhaps, be the origin of the division of the property into two Inns of Court; for the lease of 1339 obviously refers only to what is now known as the Middle Temple.
There is a tradition that the students of the Inner Temple came from Davy's Inn, which could hardly have existed at that time under that name, but it may be noted that in the records of that Inn it is stated, under date of 1525, that "Master Barnardston is pardoned the office of Steward because he executed the office of Principal of Davy's Inn at the instance of this Society,"[120] thus showing that this Inn of Court had the right in that year of supplying one of its own members to that office.
In 1521 the Prior of St. John's made complaint that the Society of the Inner Temple was occupying his lands against his will; but at the dissolution of the religious houses in 1541, the rentals became due to the Crown; and James I., in his sixth year, granted the property to the Benchers of the Middle and Inner Temples in perpetuity for a fixed rental of £20,[121] their several moieties of which Charles II. allowed them to purchase in 1673 and 1675 respectively.[122]
The "round" of the church was completed in 1185, the choir in 1240, and the whole building was "restored" in 1842 at a cost of £70,000. The hall of the Middle Temple was built in 1572, that of the Inner Temple in 1870.
The property on the west side of New Street, or Chancery Lane, had been granted to, or acquired by, the Knights Templars. Henry III.'s Chancellor, Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, died at his house there in 1244, and the King arbitrarily authorised his Treasurer, William de Haverhill, to secure the property upon the Chancellor's death, so that neither the Templars nor any other person should lay hands on it.[123] To the north of it was a garden once held by William Cottrell, which he had given to the Knights of St. John, who in turn had given it to St. Giles' Hospital for Lepers.[124] In the year 1310, when Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, died, another Bishop of Chichester, John de Langton, was Chancellor, and was occupying the Inn of the see, whilst the hospital of St. Giles was still receiving rent for Cottrell's garden. No Black Friars house, therefore, ever existed here, nor did Henry de Lacy die here; and all traditions to the contrary can be disproved.
In 1422 the Society of Lincoln's Inn, coming probably from Holborn, took a lease of the Bishop of Chichester's property, and afterwards a lease of Cottrell's garden. In 1537 Bishop Sampson sold the house and land belonging to the see to William and Eustace Sulyard, members of the Inn, from whom it descended to Edward Sulyard, who sold it in 1579 to the society. Subscriptions for this purchase were received by the Benchers, as is evident from the will of Sir Roger Cholmeley, dated 1565, who gave to certain trustees a house in Newgate Market "to hold to them and their heirs for ever towards the purchase of Lincoln's Inn and in the mean season towards the repairs of the same."[125] The hall of this Inn was pulled down and rebuilt in 1489; but since then, in 1845, a new hall, Gothic in character, and of great dignity and beauty, has been erected. The chapel, by Inigo Jones, dates from 1621, and the fine old gateway from 1518.
The Inns of Chancery were at first independent of the four Inns of Court, but, inasmuch as serjeants were chosen only from the latter, it became the custom for students in the lesser Inns, when "they came to ripeness," as Fortescue puts it, to enter one of the higher Inns if they desired advancement. Gradually each Inn of Court took special interest in certain of the lesser Inns, by sending to them Readers and by other marks of patronage, until an impression came to exist, which was much strengthened by various Orders in Council, that a certain governorship of one over the other was a normal, legal, and time-honoured institution. And in a few instances the Inns of Court put the coping stone to this theory by purchasing the property of those lesser Inns, of which they were the patrons. Thus Lincoln's Inn bought Furnival's on December 16th, 1547, having previously held a lease of it, and Davy's on November 24th, 1548; and the Inner Temple bought Lyon's Inn in 1581, which they sold in 1863, the Globe Theatre being built upon its site.
It is doubtful whether Furnival's Inn was ever occupied by the Lords Furnival. In 1331 the property belonged to Roger atte Bowe, a wool-stapler, who died in that year, leaving his tenements in Holbourne and a garden in Lyverounelane to his children. How or when it came into the hands of the De Furnivals is not known; but in 1383 an inquisition post mortem was taken by the Mayor, at which the jurors recorded that
"William Furnyvall, knight, did not die seised of any lands or tenements in the city of London nor in the suburbs thereof. But that in his life time he was seised of two shops and 13 messuages with appurtenances in the street called Holbourne in the suburb of London situated between a tenement of Jordain de Barton on the east (he was a Chauff-cier, i.e., an officer of Chancery who prepared the wax for the sealing of writs to be issued) and a tenement of John Tonyngton on the west and which formerly belonged to Roger atte Bogh. And William de Furnyvale enfeoffed William Savage, parson of the church of Handsworth and John Redesere, chaplain, of the aforesaid messuages and shops to hold to them, their heirs and assigns for ever and they are still thereof seised. And the messuages and shops are worth 100s. and are held in free burgage of the king by the service of 11s. 4d. for all services. William Furnyvall died 12th April last past. Joan his daughter, wife of Thomas Nevill, is his nearest heir, aged 14 years and 6 months."[126]