“You are to know, says he, that the Judges do not sit in court to do Business above three Hours in the day, that is from Eight in the Morning to Eleven. After they have taken some Refreshment, the Method is, to spend the rest of the Day in the Study of the Law, reading of the Holy Scriptures, or else it is taken up in some other innocent Amusements, at their Pleasure: So that it is rather a Life of Contemplation, than of Action, free from worldly Cares and Avocations.”

from De Laudibus Legum Angliae, by Fortescue (1470) – as quoted in “How to be free” by Tom Hodgkinson (2006).