General Notes

BIOGRAPHY: William de Mountfitchet confirmed all the forest rights he had before granted to Humphrey's father Eustace, to be held as well and honorably as his father held them; and this grant he made by the advice of his wife Margaret, and of his good men and true. King Stephen confirmed this grant and those from Henry the First, and also his own as to holding all the lands his father had held, and in a second Charter he ordered that he should hold freely his lands "in Hadfeld and Writtle and Hadfield and Havering and Witherfeld." This shows him a landowner at Hatfield Peverell as well as Hatfield Regis. Indeed Chauncy, in his history of Hertfordshire, states that the Barringtons, in the time of King Henry the First, held lands in Rameldon, Hatfield Peverell, Writtle, Ravensfield, Havering, Barking, Slyford, Chigwell and Shelton in addition to Hatfield Regis. There is not a grant now extant to shew that this was the case, and most probably some of these lands came into the possession of the family much later. Humphrey de Barenton had also a grant, from King Stephen, of lands in Ramsden, Barking, and Birchanger, which was confirmed by King Henry the Second; but neither of these charters is to be found. He was a witness to the foundation charter of Woodham Priory, and a benefactor to the Abbey of Waltham. His wife was Griselda, daughter of Ralph de Marcy, and he inherited in her right the Manor of Kelvendon with lands there.