Inns of Chancery - Inns

Inns

John Fortescue wrote of ten Inns of Chancery, each one attached to an Inn of Court "like Maids of Honour to a Princess". Only nine are known of in detail, others were "never acknowledged by anybody" and are not found in records. The nine Inns were:

• Clement's Inn, Lyon's Inn and Clifford's Inn attached to the Inner Temple,
• Strand Inn and New Inn attached to the Middle Temple,
• Furnival's Inn and Thavie's Inn attached to Lincoln's Inn, and
• Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn attached to Gray's Inn.

Many Inns were originally independent of the Inns of Court, and fell in and out of allegiance with them, with some claiming independence right up to the nineteenth century. Most Inns became directly attached to Inns of Court during the sixteenth century, however, when the Inns of Court began charging higher acceptance fees to students trained in independent Inns of Chancery than they did to students trained in "their" Inns of Chancery.