broke, he receiving the
issues, but holding the manor of the lord, to whom, however, he made a
"quit claim" in October, 1314, the Pope having granted the possessions
of the Templars to the Knights of St. John. Upon the execution and
attainder of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1322, the King gave the
lordship to Hugh le Despencer, who also obtained from the Prior of St.
John's a feoffment of the houses and appurtenances,[116] and on the
attainder of Hugh le Despencer, in 1327, the lordship and also the ferm
came into the hands of Edward III., who put William de Langeford, clerk
of the Prior and "chief servitor of the King's religion," in charge as
"fermor" at L24 yearly. He repaired the old houses for the King's clerks
to occupy;[117] and for some years following litigants coming into
chancery would take their oaths in the Temple Church; though sometimes
at this period they would attend in the church of St. Andrew in Holborn,
Thomas de Cotyngham, one of the Chancery clerks, then being rector
there. It was William de Langeford who, in 1335, took a lease from the
mayor and commonalty of "a piece of land" without Newgate "for making a
hall and three fit chambers at his own expense, for the sessions of the
Justices appointed to deliver Newgate Gaol."[118] This early Sessions
House is described as being in the King's high street, on the way
towards Holebourne. It would have stood at the north-west corner of the
present Newgate Street.

The Temple contained an inner consecrated area, which was occupied by
the Knights, and some houses adjacent on the west owned by them, but not
improbably occupied by students of the law. It appears that when the
manor was handed over to the Knights of St. John the King retained part
of it, which, however, in 1338, he allowed them to purchase for L100,
and from that date we read no more of the chancery being held in the
Temple Church. In gratitude to William de Langeford, whose services had
secured to the Order the restitution of their property, the prior
granted him a lease of "all their messuages and places of the sometime
Temple lying from the lane called Chauncellereslane to the Templebarre
without the gates of the New Temple." This lease was dated June 11th,
1339,[119] and the lawyers have held the property ever since.

The consecrated and secular areas may, perhaps, be the origin of the
division of the property into two Inns of Court; for the lease of 1339
obviously refers only to what is