Britton is the earliest summary of the law of England in the French tongue, which purports to have been written by command of King Edward I. The origin and authorship of the work have been much disputed. It has been attributed to John le Breton, bishop of Hereford, on the authority of a passage found in some MSS. of the history of Matthew of Westminster; there are difficulties, however, involved in this theory, inasmuch as the bishop of Hereford died in 1275, whereas allusions are made in Britton to several statutes passed after that time, and more particularly to the well-known statute Quia emptores, which was passed in 1290. It was the opinion of John Selden that the book derived its title from Henry de Bracton, the last of the chief justiciaries, whose name is sometimes spelled in the f