Local 'of Brittany.' (a) Nick. 'the Breton.' Immigrants from Brittany. A very large number occur in the Hundred Rolls of 1373.

John de Brytaygn, Cambridgeshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Giffard le Bretun, Buckinghamshire, ibid.

Hugo le Bretun, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

Roger le Bretun, Suffolk, ibid.

Alicia de Britten, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Elias de Britton, 1379: ibid.

Ricardus Britton, 1379: ibid.

1790. Married — William Britten and Anne Keene: St. George, Hanover Square.

1796. — John Britton and Sarah Wilkins: ibid.

(English) One who came from Bretton (newly cultivated enclosure), the name of places in Derbyshire and Yorkshire.

No less than nine of this name appear in Domesday Book: all of them probably Breton knights that had followed the fortunes of Alain-le-Roux or his kinsmen. Alured Brito held of the King a birony of twenty-two lordships in Devonshire: Gozelin another in Bucks, Glou­cester, and Bedfordshire; Oger one in Leicester and Lincoln; Rainald one in Sussex; Tihel one in Essex and Norfolk; Waldeve one in Lincoln and Cheshire; and Maigno or Manno Brito one in Bucks and Leicestershire. Two others, Roger and William, were mesne-lords in Somerset and Huntingdon. It would seem an endless—not to say a hopeless—task to disentangle the genealogies of all these various adventurers from Brittany; the more so as many of them pro­bably assumed the name of their manors. This was the case with Richard Brito’s descendants in Nottinghamshire. Annesley, part of the great fee held by Ralph FitzHerbert at the time of Domesday, was held under him by “one Richard, who probably was father or ancestor of Ralph called Brito, who, together with his son Reginald de Anesleia, gave the church of Felley to the Priory of St. Cuthbert de Radford, near Worksop, in the year 1158.”—Thoroton's Notts. From him descended Francis Annesley, first Viscount Valentia, temp. James I., and the Earls of Anglesey, Mountmorris, and Annesley. Maigno Brito, the Buckinghamshire baron, was the ancestor of the Wolvertons of Stoke- Hamond (one of his manors mentioned in Domesday), where they continued for a considerable time.—Lysons.

Banks enumerates several “persons of great eminence” bearing this name among his Barones Pretermissi. Amongst them are Ranulph Briton, of Northamptonshire, Chancellor to Henry III., as well as to his Queen, who died of apoplexy about 1247; John Briton, Bishop of Hereford, one of the King’s Justices in the same reign; another John, seated in Norfolk, who affixed his name to Edward I.’s memorable letter to the Pope as Johannes le Briton, Dominus de Sporle; and William Breton, whose identity has never been satis­factorily established, who had a writ of military summons to attend the King at Newcastle in 1295.

Morant informs us that the surname of the “Tihell Brito” of Domesday was De Helion, and that he founded a flourishing and richly-endowed family in Essex, which gave the name to their seat of Bumsted-Helion. Their barony was, however, subjected by the Empress Maud to Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford. The last heir-male, John Helion, whose mother, a very great heiress, had brought the estates of the Swinburnes and Bottetourts, died 28 Hen. VI. He had himself acquired Gosfield Hall through his wife, Alice Rolf; and the whole accumulated inheritance centred on his second daughter, Isabella Tyrell; the eldest, who had married Sir Thomas Montgomery, of Falkborn Hall, being childless.

Le Breton in the H.R. A Breton, a native of Brittany. The name is common in France. See Brett.

My late friend, Mr. John Britton, F.S.A., the oldest antiquary of England, writing in his eighty-sixth year, says: "Britton, Britain, Briten, Bretten, Brittain, &c.-not common in England. I find that they abounded in parishes between Bath and Bristol. I have names from ten different registers. They rarely emigrated to Bath, Bristol, or London." A branch however did settle at Bristol about a century ago, and thence removed to Jamaica. The respectable family of Breton, of Kent and Sussex, usually pronounce their name as if spelt Britton, and there is no doubt of its original identity with it. See Breton.

(British.) A native of Britain; Bretton, a town in Flintshire, Wales.

A native of Britain, the ancient name of England. Several derivations have been given to Britain, such as Brydon or Prydyn, Welsh, the fair tribe, or brave men. Bridaoine, Gaelic, from Bri, dignity, and daoine, men. Pryddain, the fair and beautiful isle. Brait or Briand, extensive, and in, land. Brit—tane, the land of tin.

From Bretagne. Many families bore the name; of which were the baronial families of Breton of Devon, of Gloucester, of Bucks, of Lincoln, and of Essex, respectively. Sire John Breton, of Sporle, Essex, sat in Parliament as a baron, 1298.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, Brito.

Brett: from Brittany.