Bloomsbury.
_Clement's Inn_ (Vol. iii., p. 84.).--This inn was neither "a court of law"
nor "an inn of court," but "an inn of chancery;" according to the
distinction drawn by Sir John Fortescue, in his _De Laudibus Legum Angliae_,
chap. xlix., written between 1460 and 1470.
The evidence of its antiquity is traced back to an earlier date than 1486;
for, according to Dugdale (_Orig._, p. 187.), in a _Record of Michaelmas_,
19 _Edward IV_., 1479, it is spoken of as then, and _diu ante_, an Inn
"hominum Curiae Legis temporalis, necnon hominum Consiliariorum ejusdem
Legis."
The early history of the Inns of Court and Chancery is involved in the
greatest obscurity; and it is difficult to account for the original
difference between the two denominations.
Any facts which your correspondents may be able to communicate on this
subject, or in reference to what were the _ten_ Inns of Chancery existing
in Fortescue's time, but not named by him, or relating to the history of
either of the Inns, whether of Court or Chancery, will be most gratefully
received by me, and be of important service at the present time, when I am
preparing {110} for the press my two next volumes of _The Judges of
England_.