3. _Serjeants at law._--_Servientes ad legem_, or serjeant-countors. The coif or covering to the head worn by this order has also given a denomination to them. There exists some differences of opinion among judicial antiquarians as to the origin of the coif. It is supposed by some to have been invented about the time of Henry III, for the purpose of concealing the clerical tonsure, and thus disguising those renegade clerks, who were desirous of eluding the canon, restraining the clergy from practising as counsel in the secular courts. Hortensius, 349. By others it is referred to a much earlier period, when the practice in the higher courts was monopolized by the clergy, and those who were not in orders invented the coif to conceal the want of clerical tonsure. 1 Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, 85, note. There are, indeed, several circumstances to remind us of the ecclesiastical origin of our profession in England. The terms--on the festival of St. Hilary (Bishop of Poictiers, in France, who flourished in the fourth century); Easter; the Holy Trinity; and of the blessed Michael, the Archangel;--the habits of the judges, their appearance in court in scarlet, purple, or black, at particular seasons--the use of the word _brother_ to denote serjeant, and _laity_ to distinguish the people at large from the profession--the coif of the serjeants--the bands worn by judges, serjeants, and counsel, and the gown and hood of graduates of the inns of court,--many of such circumstances raise a strong presumption that the legal university was founded before the time of the enactment of the canons in the reign of King Henry III, compelling the clergy to abandon the practice of the law in the secular courts (Pearce's History, 22). _Nulles clericus nisi causidicus_, was the character given of the clergy, soon after the Conquest, by William of Malmsbury. The judges, therefore, were usually created out of the sacred order, as was likewise the case among the Normans; and all the inferior offices were supplied by the lower clergy, which has occasioned their successors to be styled _clerks_ to this day (1 Bl. Com. 17). The livings in the gift of the Chancellor were originally intended as a provision for them, and an order was made in Parliament, 4 Edw. III, that "the Chancellor should give the livings in his gift, rated at twenty marks and under, to the King's clerks in Chancery, the Exchequer, and the two Benches, according to usage, and to none others." 1 Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, 170, note.