Pre-Black Death Lawyers who Functioned as Attorneys: 779
From the database, 779 people appeared as an attorney in the court of Common Pleas right before the Black Death. All of these 779 were plausibly professional lawyers. I eliminated those people who were appointed as attorney solely for their own wife or for someone of the same name, since such appointments were probably more like appointments of people analogous to the modern holders of a “power of attorney”: they merely let that person carry on the appointer’s business and carried no implication that the person was a professional.
One should not conclude that there were thus only 779 lawyers of the lesser sort (ie, not serjeants-at-law). Professional lawyers in 1348, as before and after, were not limited to acting as attorney and, for an individual, may never have done so or have done so only sporadically. Working solely in an individual town or for a lord as a steward or bailiff and thus presiding over manor courts would have involved less travel and plausibly a better life-style. Any implication that such people were less professional than those who functioned either infrequently or frequently at Westminster seems groundless. A person might plausibly function quite frequently at Westminster for a decade or two and then acquire local patronage that paid more and abandon Westminster for a period of time or completely: he would not thereby become less professional. Similarly, a person might enter the profession completely locally and be quite proficient and only appear at Westminster sporadically if ever or only later in his career. Career paths for professional lawyers were probably as varied as in other professions.
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