The author of “The Norman People,” traces back this name to Bernard or Benard, a grandson of Ranulph, the deposed Duke of Acquitaine (living in the tenth century) whose grandsons were called Benard or Bainard after him. They were, 1. Hubert Fitz Ralph, Viscount of Maine, celebrated for his two years’ resistance to the Conqueror’s army, when besieged in his castle of Ste. Suzanne: 2. Ralph Bainard, Viscount of Lude, whose son lost the vast barony of Baynard’s Castle: and 3. Geoffrey Bainard or de Beaumont.

Ralph, thus affiliated to the great Carlovingian house of Maine, was a powerful Domesday baron, holding forty-four manors in Norfolk, twenty-five in Essex, thirteen in Suffolk, and three in Hertfordshire. The head of his Honour was a castle that he built in the city of London, of which he was hereditary chastilian and banner-bearer. This office was held in fee by all the subsequent owners of Chastel-Baynard, or Baynard’s Castle, and entitled them to the possession of a soke or ward in the city, with many feudal rights and privileges. —v. Blount's Tenures. In time of war the Chastilian was bound to come, “he being the twentieth man of arms on horseback,” in full armour, with his banner displayed before him, to the great west door of St. Paul’s, where the Mayor, with his Sheriffs and Aldermen, came out of the church to receive him, bearing the City banner, the image of St. Paul in gold, with the face, hands, feet, and sword, in silver. The Chastilian alighted from his horse, saluted the Mayor, and said: “Sir Mayor, I am come to do my service which I owe to the city.” Thereupon the Mayor presented the banner to him, with these words: “We give to you, as to our banneret of fee in this city, the banner of this city to bear and govern, to the honour and profit of this city, to your power.” He further received the gift of a charger, fully accoutred, and twenty pounds sterling for his expenses that day; and mounting with the banner in his hand, he called upon the Mayor to choose a marshal for the host, and bade him and the burgesses of the city “warn the commons to assemble and all go under the banner of St. Paul.” Then, riding in state to Aldgate, he there committed the banner to “whom he thought proper” as his deputy.

There is little else to tell of Ralph Bainard. He was dead in 1104, when Juga, supposed to be his widow, was seized of his barony, and founded Dunmow Priory. In the time of Henry III., Robert Fitz-Walter rebuilt this priory, which had fallen into decay, and either he or one of his successors instituted the custom, “That he which repents not of his marriage, either sleeping or waking, for a year and a day, may lawfully go to Dunmow and fetch a gammon of bacon.” As the history of the Fitz-Walters has no place here, and a similar custom is described at Whichnover (see Somerville), I will only add that the “pilgrim for bacon” was treated even more roughly at Dunmow. He was made to recite a tedious string of doggerell while kneeling on two hard-pointed stones in the Prior’s churchyard: “and his oath was ministred with such long process, and such solemn singing over him, that doubtless must make his pilgrimage (as I may term it) painful.” Geoffrey Bainard, in 1106, was her son and heir; and was succeeded by William Bainard, who, taking part with his kinsman Elias, Earl of Maine, Philip de Braose, William Malet, and others, against Henry I., was deprived of his barony. The King granted it to a younger son of Richard Fitz Gilbert, from whom descended the Barons Fitz Walter.

Some manors that the disinherited elder line had previously granted to a younger branch abone escaped forfeiture. Robert Baynard, a cousin of the attainted Baron, was Lord of Merton and some other Norfolk estates that had formed part of Ralph’s possessions in 1086; and in 1165 his son Fulk was certified to hold eight and a half knight’s fees in the county of Robert Fitz Walter, as of his barony of Baynard’s Castle. From Fulk descended a second Robert Baynard or Banyard, as the name was sometimes spelt, a man “of great note in the time of Edward II.,” who entrusted him with the custody of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, as well as of Norwich Castle, and summoned him to parliament in 1313. “Moreover, he was likely the same Robert, who, being one of the justices of the King’s Bench, in that capacity had summons to parliament, 2 and 3 Ed. III., among the judges, and the rest of the King’s council.”—Banks. His son Fulk left only three daughters and coheiresses, Isabel, Emma, and Maud; of whom the eldest married Sir Thomas de Grey, and brought him Merton, the present seat of his descendant and representative, Lord Walsingham.

Contemporary with Robert Baynard of Merton was another Robert Baynard, likewise a Norfolk man, who in 1313 had license to embattle his manor-house at Hautboys, “a circumstance while it tends to point out two distinct persons, leaves a degree of doubt as to which was the identical Robert who had the summons to parliament among the barons of the realm.”—Ibid. His line, too ended in the next generation. His son died s. p., and Joan his daughter inherited, and married Edmund de Thorpe.

The name that had perished in Norfolk lingered on in the adjacent counties.

There was a Thomas Baynard who was Lord of Hardebergh, in the parish of Messing, Essex, in the year 1200, and left descendants that continued in the male line for two hundred and seventy-three years. The last of them, Richard Baynard, left as his sole heir his daughter Grace, twice married; first, to Thomas Langley: and secondly, to Edward, son of Sir Thomas Daniel, Baron of Rothmare, and Lord Deputy of Ireland under Edward IV., by Margaret Howard, daughter of John Duke of Norfolk. They have left their name to Baynard’s manor.— Morant's Essex. Another family was seated at Spexhall, in Suffolk. One of the daughters and coheirs of Henry Baynard of Spexhall married John Throgmorton of All-Hallows, who died in 1510.—Suckling's Suffolk.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, Bangiard.