(died 1268) (Bratton, Henry de) Jurist and author, born probably Bratton-Clovelly, or Bratton-Fleming, Devonshire, England. He is thought to have been a student at Oxford, and is known to have heen an itinerant judge in 1245. It is uncertain whether he was ever chief justice, though he often pleaded before Henry III. He held several ecclesiastical preferments, as was usual for judges, among them the Barnstaple archdeaconry and the chancellorship of Exeter, also a canonry and prebend in the church of Bosham in Sussex, and in Exeter cathedral where he lies buried. His chief work, "On the Laws and Customs of England," written sometime before 1259, is the greatest medieval treatise on English law and was often quoted by Coke. It was first printed in 1569. A translated and revised edition was published by Sir Travers Twiss, 1818-1883.
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