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Indiana University Studies 
after he became justice in eyre and traveled the circuits for 
twenty years (1245-1265). He was made sergeant-at-law 
in 1245, and part of the time sat at Westminster, but because 
of his leaning towards the party of the barons (Simon de 
Montfort) he was dismissed by the king from the king’s court. 
Bracton was a great lawyer, but he is chiefly famous as a 
law writer. His book was the greatest treatise on the law 
of England until Blackstone’s Commentaries, which were 
written five hundred years later. Formerly it was thought 
that Bracton’s book was only an attempt to introduce Roman 
law as the law of England, but with Vinogradoph’s discovery 
of Bracton’s note book in the British Museum in 1884 it was 
discovered that Bracton had made a careful statement of the 
actual law of England. He examined five hundred precedents 
and discussed writs and gave us the common law as it had 
then developed. His general conceptions, arrangement, and 
classification he took from the civil law with which he was 
familiar, and where there was no common law he sometimes 
supplied civil law, but the substance of his book is the law 
which had been administered by the courts. His treatise 
shows that England in his time had a rationalized legal pro- 
cedure, a true criminal law of the state with direct punish- 
ment instead of compositions, a developed law of real property, 
and fixed rules of law. Professor Woodbine of Yale Uni- 
versity is now working upon a translation of Bracton. 
Strict Period. The Strict Period was the period of the com- 
mon law lawyer. There were many practitioners and judges 
of eminence in their day, but few who left any permanent 
reputation or impression upon the law. They were logicians. 
They could win cases. Their contemporaries probably thought 
of them as little gods, but the verdict of history is that it 
takes other stuff to make great lawyers. This period, there- 
fore, does not compare with the next Period of Equity in 
illustrious names. There are many names which should be 
mentioned, but few that should receive much emphasis. The 
lives of this period become somewhat monotonous, but the 
student should at least read enough about them to become 
familiar with some of the names. 
Last Plantagenets. The lawyers who should be mentioned 
in the time of the last of the Plantagenets are Francis of 
Accursii, Robert Burnel, Hengham, Bereford, Hilary, Staun- 
