Henry de Bracton

Title page of De legibus & consuetudinibus Angliæ , presumably from Bracton , printed in 1569

Henry de Bracton , also Henricus Bracton , Henry Bratton or Henry Bretton , (* between 1200 and 1210 in Bratton Fleming , Devon ; † 1268 ) was an English cleric and lawyer .

life and work

Bracton probably studied at the cathedral school of Exeter at William Raleigh theology , Roman and canon law . There he entered the clergy. Around 1230 Bracton took up a job as a scribe with the royal judge Raleigh. There he rose to senior clerk at the King's Bench . In 1239 he remained in the service of Raleigh when he was elected Bishop of Norwich. 1245 Bracton was by King Henry III. appointed Justice in Eyre (analogously: travel judge). Two years later he rose to succeed William of York himself as a judge at the King's Bech Royal Court of Justice. He held this office until 1251 and again from 1253 to 1257/59. Bracton was Chancellor of Exeter from 1264 until his death in 1268.

For a long time Bracton was considered the author of the most famous treatise on English law of the Middle Ages, entitled De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae . It is now also believed that this tract actually comes from Raleigh and was only recorded by his scribes, including Bracton. Due to countless revisions over the years, some of which are proven to be by Bracton himself, it is impossible to reconstruct the original text. In this work, the various forms of action of English civil procedural law and the entire common law are presented. In addition, Bracton is believed to be the likely author of the Note-Book , a collection of over 2000 cases from the case law of the royal courts. These cases were also used in the presentation of the treatise above. This was the first time that prejudices were used for the argument. At the same time, this work gave the judges, which are becoming more and more independent, a model for decision-making. Over time, the treatise became one of the most important legal works in English legal history and a model for all legal literature under Eduard I. Frederic William Maitland describes the work as the flower and crown of English jurisprudence .

literature

• Gerd Kleinheyer and Jan Schröder: German and European lawyers from new centuries . 5th edition. CF Müller, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8252-0578-2 , pp. 77-80 .
• William Searle Holdsworth: A History of English Law . 4th edition. Methuen, London 1922.
• AKR Kirkalfy: Potter's Historical Introduction to English Law and Its Institutions . Sweet and Maxwell, London 1962.
• T. Plucknett: A Concise History of the Common Law . Little, Brown and Company, 1956.
• Pollock & Maitland: History of English Law . Cambridge 1956.
• Peter Stein: Roman Law in European History . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-64379-5 .