BRACTON, HENRY DE

born , Devon?, Eng. died 1268, Exeter, Devon? Bracton also spelled Bratton, or Bretton leading medieval English jurist, author of De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae (On the Laws and Customs of England), one of the oldest systematic treatises on the common law. While depending chiefly on English judicial decisions and the methods of pleading required by English judges, Bracton enlarged the common law with principles derived from both civil (Roman) law and canon law. De legibus shows the influence of several European continental jurists, notably Azzone (Azo), a Bolognese glossator of Roman law. By 1245 Bracton was an itinerant justice for King Henry III, and from about 1247 to 1257 he was a judge of the Coram Rege (Before the Monarch), which afterward became the King's (or Queen's) Bench. Like most other English lawyers of his time, he was a priest; from 1264 he was chancellor of Exeter Cathedral. In 1884 a manuscript collection, evidently by Bracton, of about 2,000 English law cases was discovered. Called the Note-Book, it was edited by the British legal scholar Frederic Maitland and published in 1887.