Dish, serving dish

Staple Inn in Holborn, had its origins as covered market and meeting place for wool merchants or staplers. Lawyers were engaged to mediate in trade disputes and a Society of Staple Inn was formed in c.1415. The Inn developed as a Inn of Chancery and was attached to Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court. H.J.L.J Masse in ‘Chats on old Pewter’ , New York, 1912, p 260 makes the following comment: ‘When Clifford’s Inn was a legal society it was a rule that each member of it was to pay 13d. for vessels of pewter, and was obliged to have in the kitchen two plates and dishes for his own use. There were similar regulations at the neighbouring Society of Staple Inn. Some of this pewter still survives — some in private hands and some in the Guildhall Museum.’