Even so early as the time of Henry VI. the brotherhood of lawyers had attained to an unwieldy growth, and it separated into two halls, the original two halls of the Knights Templar forming the nuclei around which the frequenters of each grouped themselves. Thus arose the Middle and Inner Temple. Under the eighth Henry the two societies became direct tenants of the crown once more. In 1609 James I. granted "letters patent to the mansion of the Inner Temple," at a yearly rent of ten sovereigns; and a like sum was exacted for the Middle Temple. The societies have not been disturbed in their holdings since that time. The Temple to-day comprises two of the four great Inns of Court, --Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple,--which, taken collectively, constitute the backbone of the legal polity of England. Ben Jonson described them as "the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in the kingdom." They are all of great age and the recipients of rich revenues. The income of the Middle Temple alone (not the richest of the four) from the single item of rents is about thirteen thousand pounds yearly; but the affairs of the Inns are so shrouded in administrative secrecy that exact information on this topic is not easily obtained. Until recently there was a fifth,--Serjeants' Inn, the members of which were lawyers who had risen to the rank of serjeant, or to the bench itself. Formerly such promotions terminated membership in the original Inn; but since the abolishment of the rank of sergeant at the English bar Serjeants' Inn has ceased to exist,--the name surviving only in the locality,--and the four Inns have readmitted those of their members on whom judicial honors were bestowed. Each Inn possesses certain smaller or subordinate Inns, which formerly served as preparatory schools, but which are now mere collections of chambers. There are thus attached to the Inner Temple Clement's Inn, Clifford's Inn, and Lyon's Inn; to the Middle Temple, New Inn. All the Inns of Court are unincorporated voluntary societies. In our modern nomenclature the name "inn" may seem a strange one for an institution of learning; but the term is a literal rendering of the ancient title _hospitia_ applied to them in the Latin records, as distinguished from public lodging-houses (_diversoria_). Each Inn consists of a hall, a chapel, a law-library, a set of rooms for the benchers, and a large number of houses, divided into small suites known as "chambers," and occupied chiefly by barristers, solicitors, and students, though tenancy is not restricted to these classes. The quiet, the studious environment, and the freedom from certain social obligations unavoidable in more fashionable quarters, have at all times rendered residence in the several Inns peculiarly attractive to that large class in England which consists in the main of young men of good family, moderate fortune, and no particular occupation.