Henry de Bracton

Henry of Bracton, also Henry de Bracton, also Henrici Bracton, or Henry Bratton also Henry Bretton (c. 1210 – c. 1268) was an English cleric and jurist.

He is famous now for his writings on law, particularly De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae ("On the Laws and Customs of England") and his ideas on mens rea, or criminal intent. According to Bracton, it was only through the examination of a combination of action and intention that the commission of a criminal act could be established.

He also wrote on kingship, arguing that a ruler should be called king only if he obtained and exercised power in a lawful manner.

In his writings, Bracton manages coherently to set out the law of the royal courts through his use of categories drawn from Roman law, thus incorporating into English law several developments of medieval Roman law.

Plucknett describes Bracton in this way: "Two generations after Ranulf de Glanvill we come to the flower and crown of English jurisprudence – Bracton." Bracton was born around 1210 in Devon and had a great deal of preferment in the Church. He either derived from Bratton Fleming or Bratton Clovelly. Both villages are in Devon. It was only after his death that the family name appears as Bracton; during his life, he was known as Bratton, or Bretton. This originally may have been Bradton, meaning "Broad Town". Bracton first appeared as a justice in 1245. From 1248 until his death in 1268 he was steadily employed as a justice of the assize in the southwestern counties, especially Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. He was a member of the coram rege, also called the coram ipso rege, later to become the King's Court. He retired from this in 1257, shortly before the meeting of the Mad Parliament in 1258 at Oxford. It is unknown whether his retirement was related to politics. His leaving coincided with the onset of the notorious Second Barons' War in 1264. At that time Bracton was ordered to restore to the Treasury the large store of plea rolls (case records from previous trials) that had been in his possession. He was also forced to surrender the large number of rolls from his predecessors Martin Pateshull and William Raleigh, also known as William de Raley. It cannot be determined whether he disgraced the King or the barons in this affair, but it is speculated that some kind of political intrigue was involved. The practical result was that his major work, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae ("The Laws and Customs of England"), was left unfinished. Even so, it exists in four large volumes today. He continued to follow the assizes in the southwest until 1267. In the last year of his life he filled another prominent role, as member of a commission of prelates, magnates and justices appointed to hear the complaints of the "disinherited" – those who had sided with Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester.

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