This is a collection of essays on an important but overlooked aspect of early modern English life: the artistic and intellectual patronage of the Inns of Court and their influence on religion, politics, education, rhetoric, and culture from the late fifteenth through the early eighteenth centuries. This period witnessed the height of the Inns’ status as educational institutions: emerging from fairly informal associations in the fourteenth century, the Inns of Court in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had developed sophisticated curricula for their students, leading to their description in the early seventeenth century as England’s ‘third university’. Some of the most influential politicians, writers, and divines – as well as lawyers – of Tudor and Stuart England passed through the Inns: men such as Edward Hall, Richard Hooker, John Webster, John Selden, Edward Coke, William Lambarde, Francis Bacon, and John Donne. This is the first interdisciplinary publication on the early modern Inns of Court, bringing together scholarship in history, art history, literature, and drama. The book is lavishly illustrated and provides a unique collection of visual sources for the architecture, art, and gardens of the early modern Inns

Fortescue, Sir John. De Laudibus Legum Angliae. A Treatise in Commendation of the Laws of England. With Translation by Francis Gregor. Notes by Andrew Amos and a Life of the Author by Thomas (Fortescue) Lord Clermont. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1874. lxiv, 302 pp. Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-16485. ISBN 1-58477-019-8. Hardcover. * Written in 1470, De Laudibus was intended for the instruction of Edward, Prince of Wales. Written in the form of a dialogue, this book contains one of the earliest sketches of the English legal system. This is the first appearance of the modern edition, based on the 1825 Amos edition, which includes for the first time the life of the author by Lord Clermont, a direct descendant, as well as his corrected version of both the text and translation, these having appeared only in an 1869 privately published edition of Fortescue's works limited to 120 family copies.