BOYLE
r26
BRACTON
serially in the "Metropolitan Magazine" of Balti-
more. These novels do not reveal the varied gifts
and ripe scholarship of the man, though they illus-
trate the strong powers of a keen observer, and the
humour and pathos of a graceful and instructive
WTiter. Besides these books he contributed to the
editorial columns of the Boston "Pilot", 'WTote
many sketches and criticisms \vhich appeared in
print, and a lectiu-e on "The Satisfying Influence of
Catholicity on the Intellect and Senses", delivered
before the Catholic Institute in New York in 1851.
Biographical sketch by J. Fairfax McLAroHT-lx in later editions of The Spcpwife: Golden Jubilee Souvenir of St. John's Parish (Worcester); Messenger (Worcester, Mass.). 3 Decem- ber, 189S; Pilot (Boston, Mass.) files 16 January, 1864.
Edw.vrd p. Spill.\ne.
Boyle Abbey, a celebrated Cistercian house situ- ated on the River Boyle, nine miles northwest of Elphin, in the present County of Roscommon, Ire- land. It was fotmded by Maurice O'Duffy in the year 1161, and was in close connexion with Melli- font, the parent house of the Cistercian Order in Ireland. In the year 1218 (Aimals of Ireland) the church of Boyle Abbey was solemnly consecrated. A great number of the Abbots of Boyle were ap- pointed bishops in the Province of Connaught during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and more especially in the Dioceses of Elphin and Achonry. In 1235 "the English forces under the joint command of Maurice Fitzgerald and McWilliam forcibly took possession of the abbey, seized all the goods, vest- ments, and chalices belonging to the monastery and stripped the monks of their habits in their cloister. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the abbey was suppressed and its lands and possessions handed over (1569) to Patrick Cusack of Gerrardston, County Meath. From the list of its lands then made it is clear that Boyle must have been one of the most richly endowed religious houses in Ireland. In 1589 a lease of the abbey was granted to William Ussher. During the reign of King James I several inquisitions were held in connexion with the lands of Boyle Abbey, and in 1603 a lease of it was granted to Sir John King.
Perhaps the most eminent of the Abbots of Boyle was Donchad O'Daly who died in 1250, and who was recognized as a poet of verj- special merit. He is spoken of as the Ovid of Ireland. Many of the princes of Connaught retired to Boyle before their death and more especially the princes of the family of McDermot of Moylurg. The Abbey of Boyle is now in ruins, but from the remains still to be seen near the present tovra of Boyle it was evidently a place of great importance and of some architectural pretensions.
Archd.\li., Monastieon Hibemieon (601-606); Alemaxd, Histoire Monastique de Vlrlande (Paris. 1690), 191; MnRPHT, Our Martyrs, 115; Rushe, A Second Thebaid (Dublin, 1905), 130; O'Flahehtt, West Connaught, 355-379.
James M.4cCaffrey.
Bracara. See Braga, Archdiocese op.
Bracciolini, See Poggio Br.\cciolini, Giovaxxi Fr.\xcesco.
Bracken, Thom.\s, poet, journalist, politician, b. in Ireland 21 December, 1843; d. at Dimedin, New Zealand, 16 February, 1898. Having lost his parents he emigrated in his twelfth year to Victoria, Australia. He went to Otago, New Zealand, as a shearer in 1869, and published there a small volume of verse, "Flights among the Flax", which brought him into some notice. In Dunedin he was associated with the commercial staffs of "The New Zealand Tablet", "The Otago Guardian", and the "Morning Herald", and was founder and part proprietor of the "Saturday Advertiser", which was a literary and commercial success only so long as he directly controlled it. He was twice returned to Parliament
(in 1884 and 1886) for Dunedin in the Liberal in-
terest. He died in the Dimedin hospital. He is best
known in New Zealand and Australia for his verse.
His poetic publications in book form, in addition to
the one already mentioned, are: "Flowers of the
Freeland"; "Behind the Tomb and Other Poems";
"The Land of the Maori and the Moa"; and "Mus-
ings in Maoriland" (Dunedin, 1890), liis last and
fullest collection. Bracken's themes are mostly local
and colonial. He is not a world-poet, but takes hon-
ourable rank among the pioneers of Australian poetrj'.
In his best verse, much true and tender poetic feeUng
finds skilled and picturesque expression.
• Mekn'ell, Australasian Biagraphy (London, 1892); The
Otago Daily Times, files (17 February, 1898); The Evening
Star (Dimedin), files (17 February, 1S9S); The New Zealand
Tablet, files (25 February, 1898).
Henry W. Cle.\bt.
Bracton, Henry de, also called Henry of Brat- TOXE, a famous Enghsh juridical writer, the Black- stone of the thirteenth centurj', b. probably in King John's reign and died about four years before the close of that of Henrj' III. His lifetime therefore compri-sed and almost coincided with the momentous period between the grant of Magna Charta and the de- feat and death of Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, at the battle of Evesham. By birth, property, and ecclesiastical preferment he appears to have been a man of Devon, in which shire there are two parishes of the name of Bratton, viz., Bratton-Clovelly and Brat ton-Fleming, one or the other of these parishes being almost certainly his birthplace, for the claim of Minehead parish in Somerset, may be dismissed as untenable. Hence it may be gathered that the correct form of this great jurist's name is hardly Bracton, but rather Bratton, by which appellation, as well as by the occasional variant of Bretton (most likely then sounded much like Bratton) he was almost invariably described in his own day, not to add that, in point of etjinologj', "Bradtone" (broad town) seems likelier than "Bractone" to have been the earlier form of the name. To come to his la- borious and distinguished career, it is said that Brat- ton in liis youth was a student at the L'niversity of Oxford, where he is further alleged to have taken the degree of doctor of civil and of canon law but this, though indeed possible, is altogether lacking of proof. Certain it is that he was taken into the service of King Henrj- III. By tliis time the king's curia had grown distinct from King's Council and a race of professional judges had sprung into existence. Of these professional judges Henni- Bratton became one. It is in 1245 that we first find him acting in a judicial capacity, and from that year onward we continually meet with him either as a justice in Ej-re (especially in his native Devon and other neighbouring counties) or as holding pleas before the king Inmself, until the end of the year 1267. Thus he was undoubtedly a regular permanent judge, though he never appears as holding placito de banco, in other words, as sitting on the Bench at Westminster. Meanwhile more than one special mark of royal favour towards him is upon record. Vet in the civil broils of liis time he was neither side's partisan and was respected and trusted alike by king and barons. Of his great and epoch-making "literary work, "De Legibus et Con- suetudinibus Angliie", Professor Paul Vinogradoff (the Athena?um, 19 July, 1884) wTites that it is a treatise which "testifies" to the influence of Roman jurisprudence and of its medieval exponents, but at the same time remains a statement of genuine English law, a statement so detailed and accurate that there is nothing to match it in the whole legal literature of the Middle Ages." The number of decided cases therein referred to (for Bratton's law is naturally case-law) amounts to four hundred and fift}'. Like all or almost all of the professional
