Walter de Brugge

Walter de Brugge, or Walter de Brigge (died 1396) was an English-born clergyman and judge in fourteenth-century Ireland; much of his career was spent in the service of the Earl of March. He is mainly remembered now as the first person who is known to have owned a copy of the celebrated poem Piers Plowman.

Both versions of his family name are early forms of Brydges, so he may have been connected to the Brydges family of Coberley in Gloucestershire which held the title Baron Chandos from about 1337, and who at that time usually spelt their name Brugge. He was already "connected with Ireland" in 1369, and was guardian of the Irish estates of Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of March. He spent much of his career in the service of the Mortimer family, and is said to have spent much of his time in constant travel between the various Mortimer estates "shipping cash and auditing accounts". In the political crisis of 1387, where the 2nd Earl's natural son Sir Thomas Mortimer worked with the powerful faction of the nobility called the Lords Appellant to defeat King Richard II, it is likely that Brugge, who was constantly "on the move", served as a useful go-between among the Appellants.

As a clergyman he was frequently accused of corruption, and he was certainly guilty of pluralism, being Archdeacon of Meath, Archdeacon of Kells, vicar of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, and of St. Patrick's Church, Trim, and prebendary of York, Hereford, St. David's and St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He attempted to become chancellor of St Patrick's Cathedral, but was opposed by John de Karlell, a fellow Baron of the Exchequer. A petition from Brugge to the Privy Council dating from about 1377 survives, asking for the King to examine the evidence so that justice might be done to him in the dispute. In spite of his pleas the office went to Karlell. Brugge became a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) in 1381, and died in 1396.

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