Walk 3: The legal quarter beyond the London Bars

Figure 1: Black Book of Linconl’s Inn, volume of 1496, folio 34 v: Thomas More was admitted on 12 February 1496

For the education of Thomas More, see Frank Mitjans, Thomas More’s Vocation: “Early Classical Education up to 1494”, p. 17; and “Legal Training, London Lawyer”, p. 20.

Thomas More went first to St Anthony’s school, in Threadneedle Street, near his home in Cheapside, and then in Lambeth Palace, in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England. Morton sponsored him to continue his education in Oxford. Morton’s scholars were managed by the prior of Canterbury College. During his time in Oxford, More stayed in St Mary’s Hall, which was linked Oriel College.

At the age of 16, Thomas More left Oxford and returned to his home in Milk Street to take up his studies at New Inn. This was one of the Inns of Chancery where More began a legal training which would last for the next six or seven years. The only remaining trace of the Inn, formerly known as New Inn of Our Lady, is New Inn Passage immediately opposite the main entrance of the London School of Economics in Houghton Street. At the age of 18 he was admitted into Lincoln’s Inn.

Figure 2: New Inn Passage in front of the main entrance of the London School of Economics.

Figure 3: Temple Bar on the middle of the road marks the bounder of the City of London. Photo: By tony_duell – DSCN0380, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32008305 

Lincoln’s Inn and the other Inns of Court for the training of barristers are situated beyond the London Bars, that is, beyond the jurisdiction of the City, and this is why the place was chosen by the lawyers.

Figure 4: Base of Temple Bar. In front, the CITY OF LONDON; at the back of the viewer, the CITY OF WESTMINSTER. Photo Mitjans.

For visiting Lincoln’s Inn, let us start at the top of the steps leading to the north entrance of the Royal Court of Justice, in Carey Street facing Serle Street.

There are four different ways of reaching that entrance:

From New Inn Passage turn right back into Houghton Street; and then go under the LSE Bridge towards St. Clement’s Inn Passage, and into Carey Street.

Or from the City, pass Ludgate, south to New Bridge Street, to the building of the City of London School, on the corner of Victoria Embankment and John Carpenter Street. Then along Middle Temple Lane, back to Fleet Street, to Temple Bar; cross inside the building of the Royal Court of Justice, if open, or go around Bell Yard.

Or directly from the City, along Ludgate and Fleet Street, Temple Bar, and Bell Yard.

Or from Holborn Underground Station, across Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

From the top of the steps we can observe the statue of More.

Figure 5: Statue of Sir Thomas More, Knight, at the corner of Carey Street and Serle Sreet.

Sir Thomas More, sculpture by the architect Sir George Sherrin (1843-1909), above the More Gate entrance of Lincoln’s Inn. The sculpture was done in 1886, the year of Thomas More’s beatification. Sherrin is best known for designing the churches of Brompton Oratory and St Mary Moorfields.

Lincoln’s Inn

Figure 6: Lincoln’s Inn, Old Hall. Photo Mitjans.

Thomas More was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 12 February 1496 as recorded in the Black Books of the Inn, which is kept in their archive. There is a printed transcript of the Black Books in the British Library. The Black Books, which started in 1422, help realizing the importance of the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as a landmark of the legal calendar at the time. This was key in ascertaining the Date of Birth of Thomas More (see the paper on “The Date of Birth of Thomas More” ADD LINK).

The Old Hall dates of 1492. Therefore, this is the building where More trained as a lawyer. He was called to the bar in 1511, appointed financial secretary of Lincoln’s Inn in 1507, Autumn Reader in 1511, Governor in 1512, and senior Lenten Reader in 1515.

St Thomas More’s and that of St Richard of Chichester (1197-1253), are the only two full-size portraits in the stained-glass windows of the Old Hall. More’s coat of arms is also there. His “is also among those of prominent members displayed in the stained-glass windows in the New Great Hall, and the various painted portraits in the New Great Hall include – in a central position – a copy of his portrait in the Frick Collection of New York. A sixteenth-century miniature portrait is displayed in the Inn’s meeting room. Clearly Thomas More is considered by its members to be a most illustrious former member of Lincoln’s Inn” (Thomas More’s Vocation, p. 2).

Figure 7: Stained-glass window in Lincoln’s Inn Old Hall. Photo François-Daniel Migeon

At this Inn of Court, More actively participated throughout his life. He was admitted on 12 February 1496, just after his 18th birthday and was called to the bar in 1501. He was appointed financial secretary of Lincoln’s Inn in 1507, Autumn Reader in 1511, Governor and Treasurer in 1512, and senior Lenten Reader in 1515.

1. These few dates related to Lincoln’s Inn help us to consider three periods of the life of Thomas More:

– While he was a student of law, from the age of 18 to 23.

– From the moment he was called to the bar at the age of 23 to his marriage in 1505 aged 27.

– After getting married he moves to his new house in Bucklersbury and concentrates on his work as a lawyer and in the service of the Corporation of London, and in bringing up his family.

3. The period between his “graduation at the law court” and his marriage, is of especial importance to understand the whole life of Thomas More. This is the period when he considers and finally decides his course of life.

The first two letters of Thomas More that we have are from this period; the first from 1501, the second from 1504. The first letter, is addressed to John Holt, a friend of Thomas More; the second to John Colet, his spiritual director. In the first letter More writes:

As for myself, thanks be to God, I am feeling quite well; and –something few people can say for themselves- I am living my life just as I desire; so please God, may my desires be good.

In reading this sentence, we feel that More is quite pleased with the way he is “living his live” in his present situation, and at the same time, he is aware that his situation is a temporary one.

What is that situation in which he finds himself and that –he makes clear- he has chosen?

– He had just qualified professionally as a lawyer, being called to the bar; and in a couple of years he will be teaching law at Furnival’s Inn, linked to Lincoln’s Inn.

– He is very pleased with his humanistic studies (in the same letter he writes: You ask how I am doing in my studies. Wonderfully, of course; things could not be better. I have shelved my Latin books, to take up the study of Greek).

– He is pursuing also further studies on the teaching of the Church, specifically on the Fathers of the Church. (In the letter he mentions the lectures on the Fathers at St Paul’s Cathedral, at the same time he lectured on St Agustin at the church of St Lawrence Jewry).

– He is sharing these interests for the New Learning and the Fathers of the Church with a number of people who often have been called his friends: John Colet, to whom Thomas is addressing the second letter, and was then 38, when Thomas was 26; William Crocin (58), his spiritual director in the absence of Colet; Thomas Linacre (44), described in the letter as “my master in learning”, William Lily (36), and John Holt (38).
– And he is growing in his ascetical life of prayer and penance by – among other things – frequenting the Charterhouse and having spiritual guidance with Colet and (in his absence) with Grocin.

He is quite pleased with these five aspects of his life, or of his training (professional, cultural, doctrinal, spiritual formation, as well as a life of friendship) because he has undertaken them with a sense of purpose, with a desire to do the will of God. This sense of purpose is what makes him see that, trying to do the will of God, he is happier than others (“something few people can say for themselves”, he wrote). This joy is what is transpired at the beginning of the second letter, “As I was walking in Cheapside the other day, unbusy where everybody else was busy…”.

In speaking of this period, a period in which he has a clear desire to do the will of God, or rather, in which he makes himself actively available to respond to whatever else God may ask from him (so please God, may my desires be good), we should not underestimate the influence of the Charterhouse. From the Carthusians he learned an ascetical life that he kept all his life, including daily Mass, a life of mental prayer, and the use of the hair shirt which he will practice until the day before he died (he sent the hair shirt to Meg from the Tower on 5 July 1535).

However, we should not lose sight of the environment where he put to practice the contemplative life that he was acquiring. He put it into practice in the law courts, in the teaching post, among his friends. In this period, he learned to be contemplative in the midst of the world.

And we should not lose sight either, that even though the influence of the Charterhouse may have been very relevant, even his spiritual and doctrinal aspects of his life were not confined to the Charterhouse. His spiritual director those years was a secular priest, John Colet, parish priest of Stepney (later Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral) and, in his absence, William Grocin, then the parish priest of St Lawrence, and when he lectured on St Agustin, he did it not at the Charterhouse, but at his family’s parish church, St Lawrence Jewry, next to the Guildhall.

In speaking of his interest for the New Learning, we have mentioned some of his “friends” of that period, when Thomas More was 26: John Holt (38), Thomas Linacre (44), William Lily (36), Erasmus (38), John Colet (38), William Grocin (58). However, these –older than him, and some of them clerics- should not be only considered friends, but teachers. As we have mentioned, Colet was his spiritual director, Grocin his parish priest, John Holt his teacher of Latin, Linacre and Lily of Greek. This mixing with older friends and some of them clerics should not be seen as “clericalism”. On the contrary, the point was that most educated people and most people who attended either university at the time were clerics. More, in mixing with these people was widening the scope of the laity, showing that the humanities were not exclusively the competence of clerics. Similarly, he will be the first layman to be appointed Lord Chancellor after centuries of having an ecclesiastic for that post. But also, of the same period we know of others of his friends, such as Edward Arnold, a fellow student of law at Lincoln’s Inn, and Lord William Mountjoy, his companion at Oxford, who in 1499 introduced him to Prince Harry and Erasmus.

Returning to what More wrote in the first letter we have: “so please God, may my desires be good”. At the end of this period, having already in his mind a desire to seek sanctity and having acquired the habit of a contemplative in the midst of the world, he decided to get married and to pursue his work as a lawyer and his humanistic studies as a way of serving society, of building up the earthly city. Specifically, the next period of his life will be one of intense work not only as a common law practitioner, but also in the service of the City of London. He will be appointed Commissioner of the Peace for Hampshire (1504, 1510, 1512, 1513, 1514 and 1515) and Middlesex (1509), elected to represent the City of London in Parliament ( 21 Jan 1510, and 4 Feb 1512), appointed judge of the Peace for Hampshire (22 Feb 1510), undersheriff of the City (in charge of the city court in the Guildhall, 3 September 1510), and commissioner of arbitration (19 September 1510), commissioned to represent the City in dealings with the King (2 March 1512), and with the Lords (11 Nov and 7 Dec 1512), in charge of the administration of London Bridge (1513),

4. But, are we entitled to suggest that in his letter to John Colet, More is speaking of his inner peace (“unbusy where everybody else was busy”)? The larger part of the letter has been interpreted by some as showing anxiety in More’s spiritual life. However, reading it carefully we get its full meaning.

– Thomas More starts by mentioning his inner peace, a state of mind that his spiritual director would have understood well. Clearly “being unbusy” could not be interpreted as being idle when others were actively working, because we well know the life of intense work and study More had at the time. The whole letter is written from a spiritual perspective.

– Then, More is delighted thinking that Colet was returning to the City.

– And disappointed when he is told that Colet was not planning to return soon.

– Therefore, he tries to convince him to return arguing that he is very much needed to guide the many people of the City.

There is no inconsistence in these four points, but they let us see no only More’s contemplative life, but also his eagerness for the instruction and evangelization of those living in the City.

The letter, dated 23 October 1504, might have served to encourage Colet to accept the appointment of Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral that same year, which he took up formally in June 1505, and therefore return to minister the citizens of London. More had written to him in this letter: “who can doubt that you are the one who can do most for the cure of all in the city?”

Four years later, in 1509, with More’s encouragement and help, Colet founded St Paul’s school, as another means to instruct the citizens of London.

5. Let us have a last look at the letter:

– His concern: The City of London. More tells John Colet to come back “to the City, where there is so much that needs your service.”

– Meanwhile, he (aged 26) ends his letter, I shall pass my time with Grocin (aged 58, parish priest of St Lawrence), Linacre (aged 44, then a layman and doctor in Medicine; he was later ordained a priest and was the first president of the Royal College of Physicians in London), and our dear Lily (36, later he became the first high master of the school founded by Colet), the first as you know the sole guide of my life (in your absence) – Grocin was then the only priest of the three – the second my master in learning – Linacre encouraged More to study Greek – the third the dearest partner of my endeavours – what were More’s endeavours at the time? We have already seen it, the law, the study of Latin and Greek, and the Fathers of the Church: Lily wrote two books on Latin grammar and became a good Greek scholar. In conjunction with Thomas More, he published Progymnasmata, a series of translations from the Greek anthology into Latin elegiacs.

– Colet, Grocin, Linacre, and Lily had studied in Oxford, and the four of them separately had also pursued studies in Italy; the four of them, together with More, were fostering the New Learning in London.

– The following year, 1505, John Colet returned to London, and Thomas More married Jane Colt.

Ely Place, Holborn: Church of St. Etheldreda

Next to Holborn Circus, at the start of Charterhouse Street. Tel.: 020 7405 1061

Ely Place was the London residence of the Bishops of Ely. Thomas More mentioned Ely Place in his History of Richard III. There is a scene in which Richard, about to embark upon one of his more murderous courses, charmingly asks the Bishop of Ely, “My lord you have very good strawberries at your garden in Holborn, I require you let us have a messe of them”^. The Bishop of Ely was at that time John Morton (Bishop of Ely from 1479 to 1485), More’s earliest patron and benefactor. It is likely that Morton told him this story, although it is possible that More himself had admired the strawberries in that Holborn garden. We can well imagine a child remembering after years had passed the appetizing strawberries he tasted in that garden. Perhaps Thomas More was there as an eight-year-old child in June-July 1485. But even if he had been told by Morton in Lambeth, he would have had the chance to visit the garden in the years when he studied at Lincoln’s Inn and lived not far from Ely Place.

More would also know Nicolas West, Bishop of Ely in 1517, who appointed one of the tutors of More’s children, William Gonell, to a parish in his diocese. Gonell remained for some time longer as tutor in More’s family.

At present Ely Place is just outside the City of London. Having been from the beginning under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely, it was never under the Corporation of London.

The church at Ely Place was dedicated to St. Etheldreda. She was the daughter of a king of East Anglia, and founded a monastery in Ely in the 7th century. The building of the church is pre-Reformation (1252) though Catholic worship was discontinued with the Reformation and re-instated only in 1876 when it was taken over by the Institute of Charity (Rosminians). Therefore, it seems that this is the only present-day Catholic church where More would have worshipped.

The stained-glass window at the back of this church depicts the hanging, drawing, and quartering, at Tyburn on 4 May 1535, of the five protomartyrs of Henry VIII’s attack on those who refused to accept his supremacy of the Church in England. These included three Carthusians, SS. John Houghton (Prior of the London Charterhouse), Robert Laurence (Prior of Beauvale), and Augustine Webster (Prior of Axholme), together with Richard Reynolds a Brigettine of the Monastery of Syon, and John Haile, a secular priest, the parish priest of Isleworth.

Figure 8: Church of St. Etheldreda: The stained-glass window at the back of this church depicts the hanging, drawing, and quartering, at Tyburn on 4 May 1535, of the five protomartyrs of Henry VIII’s attack on those who refused to accept his supremacy of the Church in England. These included three Carthusians, SS. John Houghton (Prior of the London Charterhouse), Robert Laurence (Prior of Beauvale), and Augustine Webster (Prior of Axholme), together with Richard Reynolds a Brigettine of the Monastery of Syon, and John Haile, a secular priest, the parish priest of Isleworth.

Charterhouse

See Thomas More’s Vocation, pp. 155-176.