A native of Norfolk, Thomas Brinton became a Benedictine monk at the priory of Norwich, where he found not only a decent library but a learned environment, which he shared with one of the best Benedictine theologians of the later fourteenth century, the future cardinal Adam Easton. Apparently Brinton was sent to study, first at Cambridge – sermon 32 relates a story “tempore quo studui Cantabrigie” – and later to Oxford, where he incepted as doctor of canon law in 1364. By then he evidently enjoyed a reputation as preacher, for he was called home, with Adam Easton, “in order to preach the customary sermons in the cathedral.” Before and after his doctorate he spent several years at the papal curia at Avignon and in Rome, where he served as proctor of the general chapter of the English Benedictines and preached before the pope. In Rome he was also involved in the founding of what became the English College. In January of 1373 Pope Gregory XI appointed him bishop of Rochester, against the election of the priory monks, and for the next decade Brinton took part in a number of major political events of Church and state: the parliaments of 1376 and 1377, the peace negotiations with France (1380), the commission that tried the rebels of the Peasants’ Revolt (1381), and the Blackfriars Council, which condemned Wyclif's teaching (1382).