The features of every ancient City are marked with the wrinkles and the scars of Time. The narrow lanes, the winding streets, the huddled houses, the blind alleys form, as it were, the furrows upon her aged countenance. They contribute enormously to the charm and beauty of her riper years, for they point to a life rich in experience and varied reminiscences. But, like other wrinkles, they have their drawbacks. As the bottle-neck of Bond Street, which blocks the traffic half the season, is the direct topographical result of the river which once flowed thereabouts, so the boundary of the property of the Knights Templars, marked by the Inner and Middle Temple Gateways, imposes the southern limit of Fleet Street, opposite to Street’s Gothic pile of Law Courts and to Chancery Lane. Hence the narrowness of that famous street, and the consequent congestion of traffic on the main route to the City. Then come the Beauty Doctors, who smooth out the old wrinkles, and broaden the ancient, narrow lines, which Time has cut so deeply on the face of the Town. The old landmarks are removed, and Wren’s gateways and buildings must disappear in order that broad, straight paths be driven right to the sanctuary of Business. And yet the old influences and the effects of historic movements and historic events persist, and will persist. It may seem far-fetched to say that everyone whose business or pleasure takes him to Fleet Street is directly subject to the influence of the Crusades. Yet it is so. But for those strange wars of mingled religious enthusiasm and commercial aggression, there would have been no Templars, and had there been no Templars, the whole nomenclature and topographical arrangement of this part of London would have been different; for the Societies of Lawyers, who succeeded to their property, succeeded, of course, to the boundaries of the messuages, as to the Round Church of the Knights Templars. Of the Temple, and the Templars, and their successors, we shall deal more at length in their proper places. It will be convenient first to consider what these Societies of Lawyers were and are, how they arose, and why they settled in the particular vicinity wherein they have chosen to set their ‘dusty purlieus.’ William the Conqueror had established the Law Courts in his Palace. The great officers of State and the Barons were the Judges of this King’s Court--_Aula Regis_--which developed into three distinct divisions: King’s Bench and Common Pleas, under a Chief Justice, and Exchequer, where a Chief Baron presided to try all causes relating to the royal revenue. It was the business of a Norman King to ride about the country settling the affairs of the realm, which was his estate, and administering justice. The great Court of Justice, therefore, naturally accompanied the King in all his progresses, and suitors were obliged to follow and to find him, travelling for that purpose from all parts of the country to London, to Exeter, or to York.