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the Lancastrian Prince Edward, son of Margaret of Anjou, in order to persuade the prince that English laws and government were totally
superior to those of France. Only a few pages were devoted to the inns
of court, but Fortescue depicted their virtues in glowing colours.^ He
began by claiming that, since the common law required a knowledge
of French and Latin, it could not be taught at the universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, where Latin was the only medium of instruction. Therefore legal training was provided in London, at the 'academy
of the laws of England', comprising four greater inns of court and ten
lesser inns of chancery, which served as preparatory schools for the inns
of court. The students at the inns of court were virtually all noble- men's sons, since pauperes et vulgares could not afford the ex- pense of residence. Tuition in dancing, music and other courtly arts was available, so many great men enrolled their sons there, 'although
they do not desire them to be trained in the science of law, or to live by its practice, but only by their patrimonies'. The internal organisation and structure of the societies was not discussed, but their com- munal life was said to be exceptionally peaceful, despite the fact that they admitted as many students *of mature age' as any French law
school, Paris only excepted. Nor did Fortescue attempt to outline the
methods of legal instruction, merely assuring the prince that they were
'pleasant, and in every way suited to the study of law, and also worthy
of every regard*.
Tottel, the law publisher, brought out the first English translation of De Laudibus Legum Angliae in 1567, and this was followed by eight more English editions before the Civil War. Fortescue's didactic treatise enjoyed great popularity as an encomium of the common law, while
his account of the inns was naturally regarded as the leading authority on the subject. John Stow and Sir George Buc, whose part-historical,
part-contemporary descriptions of the inns were published in 1598 and
1 61 5 respectively, both accepted Fortescue's claims for the high
academic and social standing of the societies; indeed they tended to assume that the inns were still much as they had been when Fortescue
described them more than a century before.^ This essentially a-historical attitude was fully shared by Sir William
Dugdale, whose lengthy and immensely influential compilation Ori- gines Juridiciales appeared in 1666, with further editions in 1671 and
1680. The second half of Dugdale's Origines consists of a series of
extracts from the original records of the inns, arranged under subject
^DLLA, 1 1 7-2 1. 3 Heame, op. ciu, 2, 130; Caroline Skeel, 'The influence of the writings of Sir John Fortescue*, TRHS, 3rd ser., 10 (1916), 77-114; John Stow, A Survey of London, ed. C. L. Kingsford (1908), i. 76-9; Sir George Buc, The Third Universitie of England. Or, a Treatise of the foundations of all the colledges, ancient
schools of priviledge, and of houses of learning, and liberall arts, within and about
the most famous cittie of London, printed as appendix to John Stow's Annales,
ed. E. Howes (1615), 958-69.
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- Год издания
- 1972
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