We visited the Inns of Court and Temple back in 2021, but the church itself was closed due to Covid. We tried again this year, with success, and even managed to find Gray's Inn as well, site of the first known performance of The Comedy of Errors (28 December, 1594, according to the Gesta Grayorum). The significance of this will become clear(er) in due course. The Inns of Court are Britain's national college of law, sort of, at least for the higher echelons of legal practice. My take on them and the British legal system generally is in the 2021 Temple post https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2021/08/temple-and-inns-of-court.html. Our focus this visit was rather more the Temple, the Templars' 12th century replica of the Temple of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. It is important for much more than that, however...
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| The Temple: the roundish bit is called--imaginatively--the Round, and functions as the nave; the longish bit serves as the chancel; the whole was consecrated in 1185, presided over by the Archbishop of Jerusalem; the chancel was rebuilt a century later, the Round renovated and redecorated several times over the centuries, notably by Christopher Wren, among others; the Round was rebuilt after German bombs fairly wrecked the place in 1941 |
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| The Templars were perhaps the most powerful and wealthy secular order in the high Middle Ages, feared and envied by kings and popes, and the Temple was the headquarters of their London branch |
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| Interior views; it's not huge, but the verticality prohibits fuller views, especially with my phone's lens |
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| Effigies and such all around, especially from the 13th century, the height of the Temple's historic importance; reconstructed after the Blitz, some casts from the V&A |
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| Re-dedication in 1958 attended by the Queen, the Duke, the Queen Mother, among others; a place sacred in English history... |
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| View of the chancel |
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| Interpretive signage is everywhere...a few early bits about the Templars and the Temple, the rest about what happened here in 1215, and its aftermath |
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| The Temple was King John's London HQ, and it was here that the barons first presented him with their demands; his response at the time was basically "Let me get back to you on that," and they got back to him a few months later at Runnymede, forcing his signature on the new Magna Carta; he shortly repudiated it and even had the pope pronounce it null and void ("under duress"); things got even messier after that, with new drafts, negotiations, agreements, repudiations, etc.; happily for everyone else, John died in 1216... |
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| ...and William Marshal, who had been loyal to the king, took over as regent for the 9 year-old heir Henry III; Marshal then decisively blessed the new Magna Carta before his own death in 1219; and the rest is... |
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| And among the history...quite a few of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence were alums of the Inner and Middle Temple Inns of Court |
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| "Cradle of the Common Law" indeed |
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| Moving right along, we are now walking up Chancery Lane, looking for Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, and looking into the legal regalia shops |
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| Lincoln's Inn of the Inns of Court; I think |
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| Now in the courtyard of Gray's Inn, Vicki, who has a nose for libraries, spots the Gray's Inn library, where they are airing things out; or possibly something else |
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| After discussion with a few seemingly knowledgeable residents, we concluded this was the site of the December 28, 1594, first known performance of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, "by a company of base and common fellows"... |
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| Street scene thereabouts; love old London |
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| Aptly named restaurant for the area... |
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| Right around the corner, on Fleet Street, are the Royal Courts of Justice |
