Baraby History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The surname Baraby was first found in "Normandy where a town and two villages bear the name of this saint; but from which of them the existing family is derived it would be hard to say. The town - Ste. Barbe-en-Auge - contained a Priory of Canons Regular, founded by King Stephen, and endowed by him with lands in England." 1

"Robert de St. Barbs, who came with the Conqueror from Normandy (in which province a town and two villages bearing the name are still to be found) was, according to an ancient charter of the Abbey of Glastonbury, progenitor of Robert St. Barbs of South Brent, co. Somerset, to whom the families of St. Barbs of Ashington, Whiteparish, and Ridgeway traced their pedigree." 2

"William de St. Barbara, Dean of York, was elected Bishop of Durham in 1143, during the usurpation of the See by Cumin. He was chosen, almost by stealth, by some monks that had made good their escape to York and " was with difficulty prevailed upon to accept the arduous office." His misgivings were amply justified by the event. For sixteen months he was virtually excluded from his diocese, and driven from one place of refuge to another." 1

"I now come to the old Somersetshire family of St. Barbe, still represented in the neighbouring county of Southampton. They were tenants of the Abbot of Glastonbury, of whom they held South Brent, and are often mentioned in the monastic Chronicle. It is there pointed out, as a remarkable coincidence, that the coif and veil of the holy Barbara were among the relics preserved in the Abbey with which they were so early and so long connected. Their first ancestor, Robert de Sainte Barbe, is said according to the too familiar phrase - to have come over with the Conqueror; but their tenure can scarcely have been of so ancient a date, as their name is not found in the earliest lists. About one hundred and fifty years later occurs a second Robert, whose grandson, Richard Seintbarbe, received in 1295 from the Abbey as a life-pittance or corrody, 'a yearly pension of ten pounds, to be paid out of the exchequer of Glastonbury at the feast of Easter and St. Michael, by equal portions'" 1