ABSTRACT
In the early 1980s Paul Brand and Robert Palmer addressed the origins of the English legal profession in seminal articles, but did so from different angles, stressing particular facets and characteristics they saw as defining the nascent profession or ‘professionalism’. Brand concentrated predominantly on the higher end, the pleaders (or serjeants-at-law as they later became), whose practice was largely focussed on the Westminster courts. Palmer looked to the counties and the lower end of the profession, identifying as a key dynamic in its growth men who were acting as attorneys in the central courts, but who were employed in a variety of roles as local officials. Seminal studies of the gentry by Peter Coss and Christine Carpenter (among others) have enabled historians to put flesh on the bones of the legal picture by placing ‘men of law’ within their respective political and social milieus. Studies of leading legal families such as the Scropes, Stonors, Thorpes and Townsends have further enriched perspectives on the development of the legal profession. It is examination of their private lives, however, that provides a fuller context and enhances understanding by giving a three-dimensional view of lawyers’ position within society.
Looking over a broad chronological spread from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, it is clear that the legal profession was not a monolithic or static entity, but an ever-expanding, multi-layered body of individuals with its own hierarchies of professional attainment and markers of social distinction. This paper draws on my ESRC-funded ‘Lawyers in Society’ study and examines lawyers’ professional identities and the interface with their private personas. It explores both external views of ‘men of law’ and their self-representation, evaluating evidence from diverse legal, literary and visual sources, including the law reports, wills, tomb effigies, memorial brasses and Chaucer’s portrait of the ‘Serjeant-at-Law’. It shows the importance of adopting a holistic view by examining the spectrum of individuals within the social and legal hierarchy in order to provide a balanced assessment of the evolution of the profession.
