Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/157

 by Sir Travers Twiss, four have Bratton and one Bracton. The deed of 1272 endowing a chantry for the benefit of his soul speaks of Henry de Bratton, and so does the deed of 1276 with a like object. This chantry, which existed until the reign of Henry VIII, seems to have been always known as Bratton's chantry. The earliest extant biographical notice of Bracton occurs in Leland's 'Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis' (i. cap. cclxxvi.) He says he took it 'ex inscriptione libri Branomensis bibliothecæ.' Bale, in his 'Illustrium Majoris Britanniæ Scriptorum Catalogus,' appropriates his account very much as it stands, adding only that Bracton was of good family, that his university was Oxford, and that he was one of the justices itinerant before he became chief justice. The reference to the 'Branomensis bibliotheca' he suppresses, probably because he could make nothing of it. Tanner, who also repeats Leland, tries to emend the text by inserting 'edidit' after 'librum,' and appends the following note: '"In Bravionensis seu Wigorniensis bibliothecæ serie quadam legi memoriaque retinui." Ita legit MS. Lel. Trin.' It is clear that in any case the passage is corrupt. The subsequent biographers of Bracton until Foss do little more than repeat Bale's statements, and these are only very partially confirmed by the records. Dugdale mentions him as a justice itinerant in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in 1245, and places him in the commission of the following year for Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire. As he is described as a justice in the record of a fine levied in this year, preserved in the Register of Waltham Abbey (Harl MS. 391, fol. 71), in close connection with Henry de Bathonia and Jeremiah de Caxton, both justices of the Curia Regis, it is probable that he was then one of the regular justices. Against this, however, must be set the fact that the series of entries on the Fine Rolls to which reference has already been made does not begin until 1250. After 1246 Dugdale ignores him until 1260, from which date until 1267 he mentions him pretty frequently as a justice itinerant in the western counties. After 1267 all the records are silent as to his doings. During a portion of his career he seems to have stood well with the king; for in 1254 he had a grant by letters patent of the town house of the Earl of Derby, then recently deceased, during the minority of the heir, being therein designated 'dilecto clerico nostro.' In 1263-4 (21 Jan.) he was appointed archdeacon of Barnstaple, but resigned the post in the following May on being created chancellor of the cathedral of Exeter. He also held a prebend in the church of Exeter, and another in that of Bosham in Sussex, a peculiar of the bishops of Exeter, from some date prior to 1237 until his death, which occurred in 1268, and probably in the summer or early autumn of that year, as Oliver de Tracy succeeded him as chancellor of Exeter Cathedral on 3 Sept., and Edward Delacron, dean of Wells, and Richard de Esse in the prebends of Bosham and Exeter respectively in the following November. He is known to have left some manuscripts to the chapter of Exeter by his will, and it may have been one of these that Leland saw, supposing 'Exoniensis bibliothecæ' to be the true reading. For the statement that he discharged the duties of chief justice for twenty years no foundation is now discoverable. During the earlier portion of his official life (1246-58) the office was in abeyance, and if Bracton was ever chief justice, it must have been either before 1258 or after 1265. It is possible that, while the office was in abeyance, the king entrusted his 'dear clerk' with some of the duties incident to it. It is also possible, as Foss has conjectured, that Bracton held the office during the interval between the death of Hugh le Despenser and the appointment of Robert Bruce (8 March 1267-8); but it is very unlikely that, if he was ever regularly appointed, no record of the fact should have survived. Of his alleged connection with Oxford it is also impossible to discover any positive evidence. That he was an Oxford man is intrinsically probable from the character of his treatise, 'De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ.' It bears such evident traces throughout of the influence of the civil law as to leave no doubt that the author was familiar not merely with the Summa or manual of the civil law compiled by the celebrated glossator, Azo of Bologna, but with the Institutes and Digest of Justinian, and Oxford was at that time the seat of the study of the civil law in this country. Moreover, Bracton's first two books, 'De Rerum Divisione' and 'De acquirendo Rerum Dominio,' have a decidedly academic air, for they are carefully mapped out according to logical divisions such as a professor writing for a society of students would naturally affect; and though, from a reference to the candidature of Richard, earl of Cornwall, for the imperial crown in the latter book (ii. cap. xix. § 4, fol. 47), it is clear that that passage was written as late as 1257, it by no means follows that the book as a whole does not belong to a much earlier date. At the same time, it cannot be affirmed with any confidence that Bracton could not have acquired the accurate and