Following the invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror ordered the production of the Domesday Book to provide a detailed statement of the lands held by the King, and by his tenants, and of the resources which went with those lands. The book was completed in 1086.
The name Barnebi appeared in Domesday Book. The land was divided between two main landholders. The village was ‘in the fee’ of Bishop Odo of Bayeux. The other main landholder was the Bishop of Lincoln. There was ‘a priest and a church in which lay half a bovat and one mill and thirty acres of meadow and a small wood’. A bovat was a piece of land which could be cultivated by one ox in a day. The mill was a water mill and was believed to have been just south west of the Church on the River Witham.
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux was also the Earl of Kent. He was the half-brother to William I, son of Robert of Normandy and Herleva his mistress, and acted as Regent in William I’s absence. Arrested in 1082 for conspiracy, and placed in prison at Rouen in 1086, he was pardoned by William I on his death-bed in 1087. Odo rebelled against William Rufus in 1088, was defeated and fled to Normandy. He died in 1097 on the First Crusade. He had holdings in 22 counties in England. Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln provided William I with ships for invasion of 1066. He moved from Dorcester, Oxfordshire, to Lincoln between 1072 and 1086. Remigius was a Domesday commissioner and had holdings in 9 counties.
Last updated: 10 November 2000