Middle Temple
one of the four Inns of Court in London, England
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with which it shares Temple Church), Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. It is located in the wider Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and within the City of London. As a liberty, it functions largely as an independent local government authority.
History
During the 12th and early 13th centuries the law was taught, in the City of London, primarily by the clergy. But a papal bull in 1218 prohibited the clergy from practicing in the secular courts (where the English common law system operated, as opposed to the Roman civil law favoured by the Church). As a result, law began to be practised and taught by laymen instead of by clerics. To protect their schools from competition, first Henry II and later Henry III issued proclamations prohibiting the teaching of the civil law within the City of London. The common law lawyers migrated to the hamlet of Holborn, as it was easy to get to the law courts at Westminster Hall and was just outside the City. They were based in guilds, which in time became the Inns of Court.
The Middle Temple is the western part of "The Temple", which was the headquarters of the Knights Templar until they were dissolved in 1312.
The public source identifies “Middle Temple” as one of the four Inns of Court in London, England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Middle, Temple and four.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q925942. Authority coordinates are 51.512, -0.111. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1218 and 1312.
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This entry incorporates text from “Middle Temple” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.