Michaelmas term

It begins, London.

Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall.

Implacable November weather.

As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

Dickens continues by describing the Lord Chancellor as he is addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief.

Another student interpreted this passage as describing him in a room with an animal, I think? Great whiskers? A cat? That students would struggle with unfamiliar references is not surprising, but the researchers gave them access to the entire internet.

They could have looked up Michaelmas Term or Lord Chancellor or Lincoln's Inn Hall if they had chosen to do so.

Students didn't even know how to go about figuring out what they didn't understand, or they didn't bother.

A farmer walked into town on Michaelmas with a year's worth of dealings to close and walked out with the books balanced and the next year already begun.

The law courts still open their autumn session as Michaelmas Term, and so do the old universities.

The whole machinery of the country was set to that date the way ours is set to the 1st of January, except that it made more sense, because the harvest was in, and everyone finally knew what they had.

You cannot close a year in January.

How long did you get to live there?

It was for the Michaelmas term, which was early October through, uh, first week of December, I think, so it was-

Of '24, something like that?

Uh, yes, of '24.

Courts opened.

Even today, British universities such as Oxford use the name Michaelmas term for their autumn academic session.

Across Europe, meanwhile, St. Michael became associated with extraordinary mountaintop shrines.

In Italy, pilgrims traveled to the ancient sanctuary of Monte Gargano, where tradition holds that St. Michael appeared in the 5th century.

Then there was the law.

The royal courts at Westminster sat in four terms, and Michaelmas Term, starting in October, opened the legal year.

All of the lawyers who had scattered for the summer came back to London, and so did everybody who had a lawsuit, and the inns filled right up.

The English courts still call their autumn sittings the Michaelmas Term.

Same thing with the schools.

Oxford and Cambridge started their year in October too.

To judge from this book, the impressions left on Locke's mind by our English public school education were not of a pleasant or favorable kind.

Locke appears to have commenced his residence at Christ Church in the Michaelmas term of 1652, soon after he had turned twenty years of age.

His matriculation before the Vice-Chancellor bears the date November 27th.

Since the outbreak of the civil wars, both the university and the college had undergone many vicissitudes.

To judge from this book, the impressions left on Locke's mind by our English public school education were not of a pleasant or favourable kind.

Locke appears to have commenced his residence at Christ Church in the Michaelmas term of 1652, soon after he had turned twenty years of age.

His matriculation before the Vice-Chancellor bears the date November 27th.

Since the outbreak of the civil wars, both the university and the college had undergone many vicissitudes.