HISTORY OF LAW 265 



for this subject he apparently finds no guidance in the civil law; 

 and in the remainder of the work he describes with great elaboration 

 the various assizes, the writ of right, essoins, warranty, and other 

 subjects peculiar to the English law, without any indebtedness, so 

 far as can be discovered, to the form or substance of the Roman 

 civil law. And throughout all that portion of the treatise, which 

 constitutes its major part, in which he purports to present the law as 

 administered in England, he refers to the decisions of the judges as 

 the satisfactory evidence of what the law of England is on the points 

 discussed, and makes no pretension of resting upon the authority of 

 the civil law, nor is there any internal evidence of his having done so. 



In fact, Bracton's treatise is an exposition of a distinctive English 

 system of jurisprudence, prefaced by a scholar's disquisition on the 

 general nature of law derived confessedly from a study Nature of 

 of the Roman system. It seems to be well established Bracton's 

 that Bracton was a cleric, and therefore educated in or ' 

 the canon law, which embodied largely the principles and methods 

 of the civil law, and that on the other hand Glanville was not a cleric, 

 but only a common law judge; and perhaps this suggestion as to the 

 preliminary education of the two men may explain the fact that 

 Bracton prefaced his treatise with an exposition of civil law learning. 



If the law of England as a system of jurisprudence was first given 

 definite form by Bracton, then is that system to be found in the first 

 portion of his treatise, confessedly modeled after the ^. -j 

 civil law, or in the latter portion, which is devoted to the Law in 

 law of England as expounded by the judges and resting Bracton - 

 on their authority and not on civil law authority or learning? Clearly 

 the latter assumption is the correct one; for when Bracton is sub- 

 sequently cited as an authority on English law, reference is made to 

 the portion of the work which purports to state English law pure 

 and simple, and not to the portion which contains an exposition 

 of the general principles of law derived from civilian sources. And 

 when a writer generally known by the name of Britton attempted, 

 during the early years of Edward I and within a quarter of a century 

 after Bracton's time, to state the English law, purporting to speak 

 in the name of the King, while he evidently borrowed much of his 

 material from Bracton, he ignored entirely the general exposition of 

 law and confined himself strictly to those subjects discussed in that 

 portion of Bracton's work professing to deal with the English law as 

 he found it ; and in this respect he followed the method of Glanville 

 rather than that of Bracton. 



Much light is thrown on Bracton's sources of authority for the 

 English law by his voluminous notebook recently trans- B racton > s 

 lated and edited, in which are set forth memoranda of Note- 

 many cases decided by the judges. These memoranda book ' 



