Professor Simpson's discovery of a note concerning the 1425 call of serjeants has, besides raising a puzzling question about the Outer Temple, shown that the four inns of court had already attained their superiority over the lesser inns which Fortescue collectively described as inns of chancery. But how new was that superior status in 1425? Had there been a time when Fortescue's distinction between greater and lesser inns could not have been made? Modern writers agree that the origins of the various inns lie somewhere in the fourteenth century, but the reluctance of any new evidence to present itself has kept the details of the story surprisingly obscure. The most we can say with confidence is that the town-houses where the apprentices of the Bench lived in term-time had acquired by the 1350s educational as well as purely residential functions, and the residents had thereby become societies.

A happy discovery in the Bodleian Library enables a little of the story between the 1350s and 1425 to be revealed. A call of serjeants took place on or soon after 20 October 1388, no doubt occasioned by the upheavals which occurred in the judicial system earlier in the year. The event is mentioned in two manuscript year books, though the note was unfortunately omitted from the Ames Foundation edition of 12 Richard II. In the Bodleian version the new serjeants' former inns are stated: ‘Nota quod a die Sancti Michelis in tres septimanas termino supradicto Hugo Huls et Johannes Woderove de Greysynne Willelmus Crosby Willelmus Gascoyne Johannes Cassy Willelmus Bryncheley et Robertus Hyll interioris Templi et Willelmus Hankeforde medii Templi dederunt aurum etc.’