The Barham Legacy

Canterbury Cathedral, December 29, 1170. Four knights, their armor glinting in the winter light filtering through the cathedral's windows, approached Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and once-friend of King Henry II. Among these knights was Reginald FitzUrse, a loyal servant to the crown and a man whose actions on this day would forever alter not only English history but the fate of his own bloodline.

"Where is Thomas Becket, traitor to the King and realm?" demanded FitzUrse, his voice echoing through the sacred space. The archbishop, refusing to flee, replied calmly, "No traitor, but a priest of God. What do you wish?"

The dispute between King Henry and his former chancellor had festered for years, centered on the authority of church versus crown. When Henry had exclaimed in frustration, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" these knights had taken it as a royal command.

What followed would be remembered as one of the most notorious murders in English history. As monks and witnesses looked on in horror, the knights attacked Becket with such violence that the top of his skull was severed. Reginald FitzUrse was among the first to strike.

The floor ran red with the blood of the martyr. Not a true martyrdom, the skeptics would say, but within years Rome would disagree, and Thomas Becket would be canonized as a saint of the Church.

The aftermath was immediate and severe. King Henry, horrified that his outburst had been taken literally, shut himself away for three days without food. The knights, including FitzUrse, found themselves reviled throughout Christendom, branded as men who had committed the gravest sacrilege: murder in a holy place, of a holy man.

Reginald, whose name "FitzUrse" literally meant "son of the bear" in Norman French, was a man of noble bearing and considerable landholdings. His family had come to England with William the Conqueror less than a century before. Now, he faced excommunication and the potential loss of everything.

The murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, December 29, 1170

Reginald FitzUrse in exile after the Becket murder, 1171

By 1171, faced with universal condemnation, Reginald FitzUrse retreated to Ireland and then to Normandy, forced to forfeit his lands. But the legacy of that fateful day in Canterbury would not end with his exile. It would transform through generations in ways that no one could have predicted.

In the years following the murder at Canterbury, the FitzUrse family name became synonymous with the killing of a saint—an impossible burden to bear. Historical records indicate that in Kent, the county where Canterbury stands, descendants of the FitzUrse family made a significant decision: they would adopt a new name, transforming "FitzUrse" (son of the bear) to "de Berham" or "Barham," possibly a reference to the place Barham in Kent, itself derived from "bear home" or "place of the bear."

This transformation of the family name—from the Norman French "FitzUrse" to the more English "Barham"—was more than a mere linguistic shift. It represented a conscious break with the past while subtly maintaining the connection to family origins. The bear in their lineage remained, though now hidden in translation and geography rather than explicitly stated.

According to the Kentish Historian and Genealogist Philpot, who conducted the Visitation of Kent in 1619 and Sussex in 1633, the Barhams of Kent and East Sussex were descendants of Robert de Berham, son of Richard Fitz-Urse, and brother of Reginald, leader of the knights who killed Thomas Becket in 1170.

— Philpot's Visitations (1619 & 1633)

The Barham family would gradually rebuild their standing, first in Kent and later throughout England. The name appears in historical records by the late 12th century, notably in land transactions and parish registers. By the 13th century, the Barhams had established themselves as landowners again, their connection to the infamous Reginald FitzUrse obscured but not entirely forgotten by historians.

The family's gradual restoration speaks to themes of redemption, reinvention, and the possibility of renewing one's legacy—even after association with one of history's most infamous crimes. While the public may have forgotten the connection, family histories preserved this knowledge through generations, a reminder of both the noble Norman origins and the fall from grace that necessitated their reinvention.

During the lifetime of Richard-the-Sheriff (1381-1418), the old territorial designation of "de Berham" gradually gave way to the more modern surname of Berham or Barham, without the prefix. In various commissions of the period, it is written indifferently as "de Berham," "de Bereham," or "Berham." After the reign of Henry VIII, it became standardized as "Barham."

As documented by Sidney Pay Barham (1887-1978): "The family name Barham is in origin a place-name. Some English surnames are derived from the physical or mental characteristics of their owners, such as 'Strong', 'Brown', and 'Wise'. A numerous class denotes trades, such as 'Smith' and 'Taylor'. Very many surnames however have been borrowed from the place where the family originated, or where it first acquired a distinct personality."

Place Name Origins

According to Sidney Pay Barham: "Barham is the name of a village in East Kent on the downs of the same name between Canterbury and Dover, but there are also villages called Barham in Suffolk and Huntingdonshire and a Barham Hall in Cambridgeshire."

"According to the students of place-names, all the Barham localities in East Anglia have a name which signified in the original Anglo-Saxon 'Enclosure on a hill'; but the Kentish Barham contains what was at first a place or family name signifying 'Bear' – in short, it was 'Enclosure of Bear' or 'Bear's Home'."

From the Historian Hasted, it appears that Barham (the site of the village) "was given anno 809, by Cenulph, King of Kent, to Archbishop Wulfred for the sum of 30 pounds of pence." This confirms that the place name Barham existed centuries before the Norman Conquest.