BRACKENBURY, JOSEPH (1788–1864), poet, was born in 1788 at Langton, probably Lincolnshire, where he spent his early years. On 28 Oct. 1808 he was a student at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1810 he published his 'Natale Solum and other Poetical Pieces' by subscription. In 1811 he proceeded B.A. (Romilly, Grad. Cant. p. 45); in 1812 he became chaplain to the Madras establishment, and returning after some years' service proceeded M.A. in 1819. From 1828 to 1856 he was chaplain and secretary to the Magdalen Hospital, Blackfriars Road, London. In 1862 he became rector of Quendon, Essex, and died there, of heart-disease, on 31 March 1864, aged 76.
[Brackenbury's Natale Solum, &c. pp. 2, 10, 28, 58, 120; Gent. Mag. 1864, p. 668; Brayley's Surrey, v. 321; private information.]
BRACKLEY, THOMAS EGERTON, Viscount [See Egerton].
BRACTON, BRATTON, or BRETTON, HENRY de (d. 1268), ecclesiastic and judge, was author of a comprehensive treatise on the law of England. Three places have been conjecturally assigned as the birthplace of this distinguished jurist, viz. Bratton Clovelly, near Okehampton in Devonshire, Bratton Fleming, near Barnstaple in the same county, and Bratton Court, near Minehead in Somersetshire. The pretensions of Bratton Clovelly seem to rest entirely upon the fact that anciently it was known as Bracton. Sir Travers Twiss, in his edition of Bracton's great work, 'De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ,' inclines in favour of Bratton Fleming on the ground that one Odo de Bratton was perpetual vicar of the church there in 1212 (Rot. Lit. Pat. i. 93 b), when the rectory was conferred on William de Ralegh, a justice itinerant, whose roll, with that of Martin de Pateshull, Bracton is known to have had in his possession almost certainly for the purposes of his work. Bracton cites Ralegh's decisions less frequently indeed than those of Pateshull, whom he sometimes refers to with a familiarity which seems to imply personal intimacy, as 'dominus Martinus,' or simply Martinus (lib. iv., tract i., cap. xxvii., fol. 205 b, xxviii. fol. 207 b), but more frequently than those of any other judge. Ralegh was treasurer of Exeter in 1237. From these data, which it must be owned are rather slight, Sir Travers Twiss infers that Bracton stood to both Pateshull and Ralegh in the relation of a pupil, and that it was while the latter was rector of Bratton Fleming that he came into connection with him. Collinson, the historian of Somersetshire, is mistaken in affirming that Bracton, or Bratton, succeeded one Robert de Bratton, mentioned in the Black Book of the Exchequer as holding lands at Bratton, near Minehead, under William de Mohun, 12 Henry II (1166), and that he lies buried in the church of St. Michael in Minehead under a monument representing him in his robes, since it has been established by Sir Travers Twiss that Bracton was buried in the nave of Exeter Cathedral before an altar dedicated to the Virgin a little to the south of the entrance to the choir, at which a daily mass was regularly said for the benefit of his soul for the space of three centuries after his decease. At the same time, if Bracton was really a landowner in the neighbourhood of Minehead, a monument may have been put up to his memory by his relatives in the parish church there. It seems impossible to decide upon the claims of the three competing villages. Some uncertainty also exists as to the orthography of the judge's name, of which four principal varieties—Bracton, Bratton, Bretton, and Bryckton—are found. Bryckton may be dismissed without hesitation as corrupt, and Bretton is almost certainly a dialectical variety either of Bracton or Bratton. Between Bracton and Bratton it is less easy to decide. The form Bracton is held by Nichols to be a mere clerical error for Bratton, arising from the similarity between the tt and the ct of the thirteenth and fourteenth century handwriting. The passage cited by Sir Travers Twiss (i. x-xi, iii. liv-v) as evidence that the judge himself considered Bracton to be the correct spelling of his name appears rather to militate against that view. The passage in question refers to the fatal effect of clerical errors in writs. According to the reading of a manuscript (Rawlinson, c. 160, in the Bodleian Library) which, in Sir Travers Twiss's opinion (i. xxi, lii), has been faithfully copied from a manuscript older than any now extant (Bracton, ed. Twiss, iii. 212), the writer says that if a person writes Broctone for Bractone, or Bractone for Brattone, the writ is equally void. If any inference can be drawn from the passage, it would seem to be that, in the author's opinion, Brattone, and not Bractone, was the true form of the name. That it was so in fact seems to be as nearly proved as such a thing can be by a series of entries on the Fine Rolls extending from 1250 to 1267, i.e. during nearly the whole of Bracton's official life, and numbering nearly a hundred in all. While Bratton and Bretton occur with about equal frequency, no single instance of Bracton is discoverable in these rolls. Further, of five entries in Bishop Branscombe's register cited
