“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”