Whether we are considering it in London or in the provinces, two points emerge from the study of the structure of the early modern lower branch. The first is that the profession was intimately tied to the clerical offices of the various courts. The other is that its primary function within the legal world had to do with the conduct of litigation. As Chapter 8 shows, practitioners in the country did certainly engage in a number of non-litigious activities. But to an extent surprising to us today, the work, public image, size, and shape of the lower branch of the legal profession were deeply involved with lawsuits. Consequently, the single most important fact about the history of the profession (and of the system within which it operated) during this period is that from the mid sixteenth century until the outbreak of the Civil War, litigation came flooding into Westminster Hall both suddenly and on an unprecedented scale. Before going on to assess its consequences for the lawyers, we must stop now to look hard and long at the nature and causes of this phenomenon.

Historians have long suspected that litigation increased during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but the exact dimensions of the development have never been fully explored. The problem is that evidence about litigation is either super-abundant and difficult to manage or, alternatively, completely non-existent. The multitude of jurisdictions, both lay and ecclesiastical, which operated on the national or local levels render it impossible to produce a global picture.