[16] Harleian MS. 2310, f. i.; Gardiner’s Hist. of England, ix. 56.
BRACKLEY, a market town and municipal borough in the southern parliamentary division of Northamptonshire, England, 59 m. N.W. by W. from London by the Great Central railway; served also by a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 2467. The church of St Peter, the body of which is Decorated and Perpendicular, has a beautiful Early English tower. Magdalen College school was founded in 1447 by William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, bearing the name of his great college at Oxford. Of a previous foundation of the 12th century, called the Hospital of St John, the transitional Norman and Early English chapel remains. Brewing is carried on. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 3489 acres.
Brackley (Brachelai, Brackele) was held in 1086 by Earl Alberie, from whom it passed to the earl of Leicester and thence to the families of De Quinci and Holand. Brilliant tournaments were held in 1249 and 1267, and others were prohibited in 1222 and 1244. The market, formerly held on Sunday, was changed in 1218 to Wednesday, and in answer to a writ of Quo Warranto Maud de Holand claimed in 1330 that her family had held a fair on St Andrew’s day from time immemorial. In 1553 Mary granted two fairs to the earl of Derby. By charter of 1686 James II. incorporated the town under a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 26 burgesses, granted three new fairs and confirmed the old fair and market. In 1708 Anne granted four fairs to the earl of Bridgewater, and in 1886 the borough had a new charter of incorporation under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors under the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882. Camden (Brit. p. 430) says that Brackley was formerly a famous staple for wool. It first sent members to parliament in 1547, and continued to send two representatives till disfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832. The town formerly had a considerable woollen and lace-making trade.
BRACQUEMOND, FÉLIX (1833- ), French painter and etcher, was born in Paris. He was trained in early youth as a trade lithographer, until Guichard, a pupil of Ingres, took him to his studio. His portrait of his grandmother, painted by him at the age of nineteen, attracted Théophile Gautier’s attention at the Salon. He applied himself to engraving and etching about 1853, and played a leading and brilliant part in the revival of the etcher’s art in France. Altogether he has produced over eight hundred plates, comprising portraits, landscapes, scenes of contemporary life, and bird-studies, besides numerous interpretations of other artists’ paintings, especially those of Meissonier, Gustave Moreau and Corot. After having been attached to the Sèvres porcelain factory in 1870, he accepted a post as art manager of the Paris atelier of the firm of Haviland of Limoges. He was connected by a link of firm friendship with Manet, Whistler, and all the other fighters in the impressionist cause, and received all the honours that await the successful artist in France, including the grade of officer of the Legion of Honour in 1889.
BRACTON, HENRY DE (d. 1268), English judge and writer on English law. His real name was Bratton, and in all probability he derived it either from Bratton Fleming or from Bratton Clovelly, both of them villages in Devonshire. It is only after his death that his name appears as “Bracton.” He seems to have entered the king’s service as a clerk under the patronage of William Raleigh, who after long service as a royal justice died bishop of Winchester in 1250. Bracton begins to appear as a justice in 1245, and from 1248 until his death in 1268 he was steadily employed as a justice of assize in the south-western counties, especially Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. During the earlier part of this period he was also sitting as a judge in the king’s central court, and was there hearing those pleas which “followed the king”; in other words, he was a member of that section of the central tribunal which was soon to be distinguished as the king’s bench. From this position he retired or was dismissed in or about the year 1257, shortly before the meeting of the Mad Parliament at Oxford in 1258. Whether his disappearance is to be connected with the political events of this turbulent time is uncertain. He continued to take the assizes in the south-west, and in 1267 he was a member of a commission of prelates, barons and judges appointed to hear the complaints of the disinherited partisans of Simon de Montfort. In 1259 he became rector of Combe-in-Teignhead, in 1261 rector of Barnstaple, in 1264 archdeacon of Barnstaple, and, having resigned the archdeaconry, chancellor of Exeter cathedral; he also held a prebend in the collegiate church at Bosham. Already in 1245 he enjoyed a dispensation enabling him to hold three ecclesiastical benefices. He died in 1268 and was buried in the nave of Exeter cathedral, and a chantry for his soul was endowed out of the revenues of the manor of Thorverton.
His fame is due to a treatise on the laws and customs of England which is sufficiently described elsewhere (see [English Law]). The main part of it seems to have been compiled between 1250 and 1256; but apparently it is an unfinished work. This may be due to the fact that when he ceased to be a member of the king’s central court Bracton was ordered to surrender certain judicial records which he had been using as raw material. Even though it be unfinished his book is incomparably the best work produced by any English lawyer in the middle ages.
The treatise was published in 1569 by Richard Tottel. This text was reprinted in 1640. An edition (1878-1883) with English translation was included in the Rolls Series. Manuscript copies are numerous, and a critical edition is a desideratum. See Bracton’s Note-Book (ed. Maitland, 1887); Bracton and Azo (Selden Society, 1895).