Barney / Berlei / Berney

There is an entry for Barney in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TF9932/barney/] [accessed 10 December 2013] but it mentions neither church nor cleric in it. Blomefield (1805-1810), who transcribes and translates the Domesday entry, notes that the place was held at the Conquest by Turchetel [aka Turketel, etc.], "but on his deprivation, King William I. gave it to Peter Lord Valoins; at the survey, William held it under this Lord Peter, who who was probably ancestor of the family of de Berney". Blomefield (ibid.) mentions a transaction related to the church in 1205 ["ao. 6 of King John"], and the advowson of this church had already been involved in an earlier transaction, not dated but it appears to have involved a "Roger de Valoins, son of Lord Peter", the latter one of the Norman nobles who fought by the side of William at Hastings, and later founder, with Albreda, his wife, of Binham priory before 1100; Roger de Valognes [usual spelling] himslef died in 1141 or 1142, according to Keats-Rohan (1999-2002), so the building of the original church here must have preceeded his death. Farrer (1887 [1885?]) identifies the coats of arms on the font: "Carved Shields on the Font. II. Emblem of the Trinity. -- III. Two keys in saltire, interposed between them in pale a sword, St. Peter and St Paul. -- IV. A pelican in her piety. -- V. A saltire couped, St Andrew. -- VI. A Hon passant between an orle of martlets,' all charges turned to the sinister, Valoina or Valoyns, Gules, a lion passant or, within an orle of martlets argent. — Papworth, 116.) This manor was given by King William I. to Peter, Lord Valoins. -- VII. On a rock, the pascal lamb with pennant. -- VIII. The sacred monogram crowned. -- IX. The letter *' M " crowned. "This church is dedicated to the Virgin." — Bl. Norf, ix. '214". Noted in Pevsner & Wilson (1997): "Font. Perp[endicular], carved with arms of the Valoines family." Illustrated in Knott (2005). The elegant font consists of an octagonal basin with vertical sides decorated with cusped panels inscrbing armorial shields; graded underbowl chamfer with plain concave lower level; trefoil windows on the stem followed down by a band of assorted quatrefoils; splaying base; plinth; the lower base and the plinth are octagonal and plain, as is the flat wooden cover.