Bracton

Bracton, HENRY DE, English ecclesiastic and jurist, of whom but little certain is known save that he was a 'justice itinerant,' in 1264 became archdeacon of Barnstaple and chancellor of Exeter Cathedral, and died in 1268. He is memorable as one of the earliest writers on English law, his De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Anglie being indeed the first attempt at a systematic treatment of the body of English law. Coke and Selden valued the work highly, and Milton quotes from it in his Defence of the People of England. The first printed edition of the entire work appeared in folio in 1569. A revised text and translation was edited by Sir Travers Twiss in the 'Rolls Series' (6 vols. 1878-83). In 1887 Mr F. W. Maitland published a Collection of Cases (3 vols.), accompanied by a series of strong and almost conclusive arguments that this was the actual collection of cases on which Bracton's great treatise was founded.