BARANTYN, Thomas (d.1400), of Chalgrove, Oxon.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Feb. 1388
Jan. 1390
Nov. 1390
Jan. 1397

Family and Education

1st s. of Thomas Barantyn of Chalgrove, and er. bro. of Drew*. m. bef. 1381, Joan, prob. da. of Sir Reynold Malyns† of Henton, 1s. 1da.1

Offices Held

Commr. of arrest, Oxon. July 1378, June 1384, July 1387; to put down rebellion Mar. Dec. 1382; of inquiry Nov. 1383 (rights of the King’s mother’s tenants), Feb. 1387 (wrongful arrests), Dec. 1387 (escapes of felons), Thames valley Feb. 1391 (theft of goods seized by the water bailiff), Oxon., Northants. Sept. 1391 (felonies); array Oxon. Apr. 1385, Mar. 1392, Dec. 1399; weirs June 1398.

Sheriff, Oxon. and Berks. 25 Nov. 1378-5 Nov. 1379, 24 Nov. 1382-1 Nov. 1383, 18 Nov. 1386-7, 11 Nov. 1394-9 Nov. 1395.

J.p. Oxon. May 1380-Dec. 1382, Nov. 1383-d.

Tax collector, Oxon. Dec. 1380.

Escheator, Oxon. and Berks. 30 Nov. 1388-30 Jan. 1390, 2 Jan.-24 Oct. 1392.

Alnager, Oxon. 20 July-24 Nov. 1394.

Verderer of the forests of Rockingham, Shotover and Stowood at d.

Biography

The Barantyn family had held property in Chalgrove since the early 13th century, as a consequence of a grant made by Henry III to Drew Barantyn, afterwards steward of his household. The manor there was to be valued after Thomas Barantyn’s death at 40 marks a year. Elsewhere in Oxfordshire, Thomas owned land at Nettlebed, and he shared with his younger brother Drew, the wealthy London goldsmith and financier, possession of the manor of Little Haseley, as confirmed to them both by Sir Richard Adderbury I* in 1391.2

The Barantyn brothers’ careers had diverged from very early on. Whereas the talented Drew established a reputation as a master craftsman of outstanding ability and as a leading figure in the government of London, Thomas trod a more conventional path as a typical member of the Oxfordshire gentry. He undertook administrative duties in the area for more than 20 years, including the shrievalty, which he occupied for four annual terms, and a long stretch on the bench. Curiously, although his earliest appointment to a royal commission was in 1378, as soon as June 1380 he took out letters patent of exemption from holding any office against his will. In this action he was following in the steps of Sir Reynold Malyns, his presumed father-in-law, a former retainer and steward of the household of the Black Prince. His close attachment to Malyns raises the possibility that he himself had served in the prince’s foreign campaigns in his youth, although evidence is lacking. Not only did he stand surety at the Exchequer on Sir Reynold’s behalf (in 1381), but also acted as a trustee of his estates and executor of his will. Furthermore, before his death in 1384, Malyns directed that Barantyn and his wife Joan should hold for their lives, together with his own widow, his property in the London parish of St. Martin Orgar. (This, in fact, they were afterwards to sell, with the consent of Malyns’s grandson.) Barantyn and his friend, John Harrowden*, then took on the feoffeeship of the estates inherited by Malyns’s son, Sir Edmund, who died just a year later in 1385, but not before he had named Barantyn and his wife in an entail of certain lands in Henton and Britwell. Subsequently, in 1391, a similar arrangement was made with regard to the Malyns manor of Little Purley in Berkshire. Both entails provided that in the event of the death without issue of Sir Edmund’s younger son, Edmund, all these properties would pass to the Barantyns. Our Member was long to keep a fatherly eye on the doings of the Malyns heir, Reynold (d. 1431).3

Barantyn also established connexions with several other of the more prominent figures of the locality. He was well known to Sir John Golafre, a favoured knight of the chamber to Richard II and constable of Wallingford castle, who by his will made in 1394 named him as an executor. Also, he was so friendly with the wealthy Sir Ralph Stonor that he was asked to be godfather to his second son, Thomas*, and later the same year (1394) to look after his affairs at home during the absence in Ireland with Richard II’s forces, Stonor giving him as recompense an annual rent of £2 for life from his estate at Watlington. Following Sir Ralph’s death in Ireland, Barantyn shared with William Wilcotes* (with whom he had twice sat in Parliament) a grant at the Exchequer of custody of two-thirds of the Stonor estates, paying £80 a year for the duration of the heir’s minority. Besides acting as attorney for Stonor, Barantyn had also undertaken a similar task on behalf of his wife’s kinsman, Edmund Hampden* (who was later in 1395 to marry Stonor’s widow); and for Sir Baldwin Berford, both of whom had also crossed over to Ireland with the King. For Berford, the keeper of the royal mews, both Barantyn and his brother Drew later served as trustees of property in London. Meanwhile, in May 1395 Barantyn had obtained a royal pardon of all sums of money due to the Crown for the escape of seven prisoners from his custody at Oxford castle during this, his fourth, shrievalty. Throughout his career Barantyn had been on good terms with John James† of Wallingford (a friendship doubtless strengthened by the marriage of his son Reynold to James’s daughter); and following James’s death in 1396 Barantyn immediately became a feoffee of property in London on behalf of his son and heir, Robert*. On 20 Jan. 1397, two days before the opening of the Parliament in which he was to sit for Oxfordshire and Robert James for Berkshire, he was also made a trustee of the rest of James’s substantial inheritance. It was probably to a co-feoffee, James’s father-in-law, Sir Edmund de la Pole*, that Barantyn owed his appointment as verderer of the royal forests of Shotover and Stowood, for de la Pole held the foresterships in fee. On the last day of the same Parliament, 12 Feb., Barantyn stood surety at the Exchequer for Sir Gerard Braybrooke II*, another kinsman of his wife, and further indication of his connexion with the Braybrookes came two years later when he was enfeoffed of land in Essex by Robert Braybrooke, bishop of London, Sir Gerard’s uncle. (His wife’s presumed nephew Reynold Malyns was at that time serving as an esquire in the bishop’s household.)4

Barantyn was empanelled as a juror at the trial for treason of Sir Thomas Blount* and other rebels against Henry IV, held at Oxford castle in January 1400. He died later that same year, on 22 June, and was buried near his parents in Chalgrove church. His heir was his son Reynold (1382-1441), who in 1416 was to inherit the substantial landed holdings of his wealthy uncle Drew, the London goldsmith, subsequently consolidating his position by marrying his uncle’s widow.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. The pedigree given in Oxon. Arch. Soc. Rep. 1909, pp. 30-31 and followed by VCH Oxon. viii. 61-62, is probably in error in making Joan Barantyn the da. of Sir Edmund Malyns (d. 1385), who, b. the son of Sir Reynold Malyns in c.1351, is much more likely to have been her brother, especially as Sir Edmund’s er. s. and h., Reynold, was not born until c.1372: CIPM, xvi. 136, 268, 270-1.
  • 2. Bk. of Fees, i. 555; CCR, 1389-92, p. 334; CPR, 1391-6, p. 297.
  • 3. CPR, 1377-81, pp. 439, 506; 1388-92, p. 466; 1391-6, p. 543; CFR, ix. 279; CIPM, xvi. 136, 268, 270-1; C136/109/30; VCH Oxon. viii. 61-62; CCR, 1385-9, p. 391; Corporation of London RO, hr 124/47, 97; VCH Berks. iii. 420.
  • 4. CCR, 1377-81, pp. 327-8, 360; 1385-9, p. 94; 1392-6, pp. 87, 113, 342; 1405-9, p. 76; CPR, 1391-6, pp. 476-7, 499, 565; 1396-9, p. 525; CFR, xi. 136, 202; Lambeth Pal. Lib., Reg. Arundel, i. f. 155; L.H. Butler, ‘Bp. Braybrooke and kinsmen’ (Oxf. Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1951), 134; London hr 124/97, 125/49, 129/38; C138/10/50; Boarstall Cart. (Oxf. Hist. Soc. lxxxviii), 261.
  • 5. E37/28; C137/34/4; Oxon. Arch. Soc. Rep. 1909, p. 32; CCR, 1399-1402, pp. 174, 176; 1413-19, pp. 327, 466; CFR, xiv. 177.