Richard Duket

Sir Richard Duket (died 1245) was an English Crown official who had a highly successful career in England and Ireland, and enjoyed the confidence of two English monarchs, John and Henry III.

Despite his eminence, the jurist Henry de Bracton thought poorly of him as a judge, calling him an "unwise and unlearned" man who had never made a proper study of the laws of England, and was forced to rely on help in writing his judgments on the assistance of more learned colleagues. He was referred to by King John as "my Secretary" (clericus noster) in 1203, and received a pension of 5 marks a year from the revenues of the Abbey of Whitby, which was then in royal hands, for his services. His salary was 20 marks. Duket was later appointed the itinerant justice for Cornwall and, late in his career, the judge of assize for the diocese of Durham.

Bracton

Despite his seniority, the great jurist Henry de Bracton, who probably knew Duket personally (their judicial careers may have slightly overlapped), thought very poorly of him as a judge. Duket was almost certainly the principal target of Bracton's diatribe in his most celebrated work De Legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae (On the Laws and Customs of England) against those whom he described as "the unwise and unlearned who ascend the judgment seat before they have learned the laws". He also acted as adviser to the Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, John de St John, on financial matters, on which he seems to have been an expert.

He lived in Lincolnshire, with his main estate at Fillingham; the Crown also granted him lands in Ireland. In 1234 Simon son of William de Seis confirmed a gift of land to Richard at Harmston, Lincolnshire, made by his son, Simon de Seis the younger. He died late in 1245,