greater Inns, called
Inns of Court, of which there are four in number, and to the
least of which belongeth 200 students or more."

It is clear, then, that the difference between the Inns of Court and
Inns of Chancery was recognised in 1465, and it is also certain that one
of those four Inns of Court was that to which he himself had belonged,
namely, Lincoln's Inn. The others were undoubtedly Gray's Inn and the
Inner and Middle Temples. We have seen that in 1387 Lincoln's Inn in
Holborn was held directly of the King; we shall find that the other Inns
of Court came to be similarly held.

In the year 1294, Reginald de Grey, a member of one of the leading
administrative and legal families, was Justiciar of Chester. He received
in that year from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's a feoffment of the
manor of Portpool, which they had received in mortmain from Richard de
Chyggewell, alderman and mercer of London. It is doubtful whether
Reginald de Grey lived here; it is more likely that he acquired the
property for the training of his clerks, having found himself under much
the same necessity as his contemporaries, Sir John de Metyngham and the
Earl of Lincoln. In 1296 he was in association with Prince Edward, as
one of the Regency, during the expedition of Edward I. to Flanders. In
1307 he died, when an inquisition was taken, at which the jurors
reported that Reginald le Grey was seized at Purtepol of a certain
messuage with gardens and one dove house worth 10s. a year, 30 acres of
arable land worth 20s. a year, price 8d. the acre, and a certain
windmill worth 20s. all held of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's.[109]

In 1316 his successor, Sir John de Grey, created a rent-charge on the
property in favour of the prior and convent of St. Bartholomew, in
Smithfield, to provide a chaplain to perform daily service in the chapel
of the manor; and at an inquisition held in that year, at the Stone
Cross in the parish of the Blessed Mary at the Strand, to know whether
it would be to the King's damage if he granted the necessary permission,
the jurors reported that the property was

"holden of Robert de Chiggewelle by the service of rendering to
the same Robert one rose yearly, and the same Robert holds the
tenements, together with others, of the Dean and Chapter of St.
Paul's, and the said Dean and Chapter hold the same of the king
in pure and perpetual alms."[110]

The grandson of Sir John de G