John Brancastre

Last updated October 02, 2019

John Brancastre or John de Bramcastre (died 1218) was an English churchman and administrator, who became archdeacon of Worcester.

The Archdeacon of Worcester is a senior clergy position in the Diocese of Worcester in the Church of England. Among the archdeacon's responsibilities is the care of clergy and church buildings within the area of the Archdeaconry of Worcester.

Life

He was included among the keepers of the great seal by Thomas Duffus Hardy, under the dates of 1203 and 1205; but Edward Foss gave reasons for believing that the subscriptions to charters supposed to be attached by him as keeper were only affixed in the capacity of a deputy, or a clerk in the exchequer or in the chancery.

Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy was an English archivist and antiquary, who served as Deputy Keeper of the Public Record Office from 1861 to 1878.

Edward Foss was an English lawyer and biographer. He became a solicitor, and on his retirement from practice in 1840, devoted himself to the study of legal antiquities. His Judges of England was regarded as a standard work, characterized by accuracy and extensive research. Biographia Juridica, a Biographical Dictionary of English Judges, appeared shortly after his death.

Brancastre's signature is found attesting documents from 1200 to 1208. In 1200 or the following year he was made archdeacon of Worcester; in November 1204 he was sent to Flanders on the king's service; and on 13 January 1207 was commissioned by King John to take charge of Ramsey Abbey during a vacancy in the abbacy, and in his capacity of administrator paid thence, in May of the same year, £97 into the exchequer. In the following October he was rewarded by the king (who exercised the right of presentation during the vacancy in the abbacy) with the vicarage of the parish which was doubtless his birthplace, Brancaster in Norfolk, and on 29 May 1208 was appointed prebendary of Lidington in Lincoln Cathedral. He died in 1218.

The Diocese of Worcester forms part of the Church of England (Anglican) Province of Canterbury in England.

John was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the French Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document sometimes considered an early step in the evolution of the constitution of the United Kingdom.

Ramsey Abbey was a Benedictine abbey in Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, England. It was founded in AD 969 and dissolved in 1537.

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References

"Brancastre, John" . Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives.

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