Two legal predecessors directly influenced Bracton. The first was Martin de Pateshull, one of John of England's clerks, who became justice of the bench in 1217, and in 1224 was one of the itinerant justices whom Falkes de Breauté attacked. Bracton esteemed Pateshull highly, and remarked, "In any list of regular justices, Pateshull's name so constantly precedes all others that he must have enjoyed some pre-eminence, though perhaps not of a definitive kind." Pateshull was archdeacon of Norwich Cathedral and dean of St. Paul's Cathedral. His capacity for hard work was such that a brother justice asked Hubert de Burgh to excuse him from going on circuit with Pateshull on the ground that he wore out his colleagues by his incessant activity. Of his abilities as a lawyer, Bracton's appreciative citations speak eloquently. He appears to have gained his reputation as a lawyer, pure and simple. He died in 1229.