John de Breton

John de Breton (Sometimes known as John le Breton, Occasionally the younger Breton appears in the records as John Bretun or John Brito.) He served as Sheriff of Herefordshire from 1254 to 1257, and then as constable and bailiff of Abergavenny around 1257. In October 1259 he was sent abroad on matters pertaining to King Henry III of England, and Henry's son, the future Edward I. He then served Edward as keeper of the prince's wardrobe and then after November 1261 as the prince's steward.

In late 1261 Breton is noted as owing £120 in the royal records. A notation next to the debt implies that he was a canon of Hereford Cathedral at this point, Breton does not appear in the records from this point until after the Battle of Evesham in 1265, when he is noted as holding a grant of royal safeguarding. He was elected to the see of Hereford around 6 January 1269. He was consecrated on 2 June 1269 at Waverley by Nicholas of Ely who was Bishop of Winchester.

A number of chronicles that mention Breton's death also note that he was the author of a legal treatise entitled le Bretoun, but this cannot be the surviving work called Britton, at least not in the current form, as that work discusses laws composed 15 years after Breton's death. It is unclear why he was credited with the work, and whether this attribution is just a confusion of Breton with the real author or if he did in fact author the work, which was later revised. The fact that the Britton is written in French, not Latin, and that it contains little information about the theory of law, being mostly concerned with the practical application of laws, points rather strongly to an author who was a royal justice, which Breton was.