Robert Fitzharding (c. 1095–1170) was anAnglo-Saxon nobleman fromBristol who was granted thefeudal barony ofBerkeley in Gloucestershire. He rebuiltBerkeley Castle, and founded theBerkeley family which still occupies it today.[1] He was a wealthy Bristol merchant and a financier of the futureKing Henry II of England (1133–1189) in the period known asthe Anarchy during which Henry's mother, theEmpress Matilda (1102–1167), mounted repeated military challenges toKing Stephen (d. 1154). Fitzharding founded St. Augustine'sAbbey, which after theReformation becameBristol Cathedral.[2] Many members of the Berkeley family were buried within it, and some of their effigies survive there. AsJ. Horace Round asserted he was one of the very few Anglo-Saxon noblemen who managed to retain their noble status in Norman England and successfully integrate with the Norman nobility, if not the only one.[3]
Robert Fitzharding is believed to have been the grandson ofEadnoth, who had held the post ofStaller under KingEdward the Confessor and KingHarold.[4] Robert's fatherHarding of Bristol was theKing's Reeve in Bristol, with a house in Baldwin Street. Robert later built a large house inBroad Street, on theRiver Frome. He became aburgess of the city and sufficiently wealthy to buy fromRobert, 1st Earl of Gloucester extensivemanorial lands around Bristol to its south and west, includingRedcliffe,Bedminster,Leigh,Portbury and Billeswick.[5][6][7]
In 1140, Fitzharding founded St Augustine's Abbey as aVictorineAugustinianmonastery. The chosen site was in Billeswick, just across theRiver Frome from Bristol Castle. He endowed the abbey with many lands, and the rights to revenues from many churches, in Bristol and within severalcounties. In 1148 he chose Richard of Warwick as the firstabbot. In 1155 King Henry II made endowments to the abbey and in 1159 Fitzharding confirmed his own endowments bycharter. The abbey carried out a building programme during Fitzharding's lifetime which created a new abbey church, thechapter house and theGreat Gatehouse.[2][7]
In the conflict of the Anarchy, Bristol Castle was held by Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester for thePlantagenet cause against King Stephen. In 1152 Roger de Berkeley was dispossessed by Plantagenet forces of thefee-farm of Berkeley Castle, held from King Stephen, for refusing to give allegiance to the Plantagenet cause. These lands included Berkeley,Filton,Horfield,Almondsbury andAshleworth, and other English and Welsh possessions including land inGwent andGlamorgan. This left Roger de Berkeley with a truncated barony centred onDursley.[8] Following the victory and crowning of King Henry II, Fitzharding was rewarded by the king for his support with the grant of a feudal barony which comprised lands which had formerly been held at fee-farm from Stephen byRoger de Berkeley, including Berkeley Castle itself, which became thecaput of the new barony.[9] Fitzharding made further endowments to St Augustine's Abbey from these territories.[2][4][5][7]
In 1153–54 Fitzharding received a royal charter from Henry II giving him permission to rebuild the castle at Berkeley.[4] The previous castle was originally amotte-and-bailey built byWilliam FitzOsbern shortly after theNorman Conquest of 1066, and had been rebuilt in the 12th century by the dispossessed Roger de Berkeley and his father. Fitzharding built theshell keep between 1153 and 1156, on the site of the former motte. The building of thecurtain wall followed, around 1160–90.[1]
According to the 13th-centuryNorman verseThe Song of Dermot and the Earl, Fitzharding acted as an intermediary betweenDermot MacMurrough, the exiledKing of Leinster, and Henry II in Dermot's attempts to raise Norman support for his planned recapture ofLeinster. The song tells that Dermot was a guest in Fitzharding's house in Bristol.[10]
Sometime before his death Fitzharding became a canon of the abbey he had founded. He died in 1170.[2]
Robert Fitzharding also owned a property inGloucestershire whereBeverston Castle (completed in 1229) would later be built by his grandson, Marice de Gaunt.[11]
The ancestry of Robert Fitzharding's wife Eva is not certain. She was the founder and firstabbess of the Augustiniannunnery ofSt Mary Magdalen on St Michael's Hill, Bristol, having endowed it with lands inSouthmead.[2][5]
Eva was buried alongside her husband in the choir of St Augustine's Abbey.[2] They are commemorated with a 19th-centurystained glass window in the cathedral, depicting them with Henry II.[12]
Robert's first son, and heir, wasMaurice fitzRobert fitzHarding, also known as Maurice de Berkeley, born c. 1120. Duke Henry of Aquitaine (the future Henry II) had clearly regretted the effect of his action in dispossessing Roger de Berkeley of his former lands, and determined to facilitate the junction of the two families by encouraging dual intermarriages. In 1153–54 Maurice married Alice, the first daughter of the dispossessed Roger de Berkeley, who was now a feudal baron of nearby Dursley.[13] At the same time Robert's first daughter Helen married Roger's heir, also called Roger.[4] This double marriage contract, binding the son and heir of each man to marry a daughter of the other, was signed at the house of Robert FitzHarding in Bristol in the presence of Duke Henry and 16 witnesses.[14]