Robert Fitzharding

Marble mural monumental tablet erected 1742 to Robert FitzHarding in the Lady Chapel, St Augustine's Abbey (Bristol Cathedral). Robert Fitzharding (c. 1095–1170) was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman from Bristol who was granted the feudal barony of Berkeley in Gloucestershire. He rebuilt Berkeley Castle, and founded the Berkeley family which still occupies it today.

Early life

Robert Fitzharding is believed to have been the grandson of Eadnoth, who had held the post of Staller under King Edward the Confessor and King Harold. 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 by Roger de Berkeley, including Berkeley Castle itself, which became the caput of the new barony. Fitzharding made further endowments to St Augustine's Abbey from these territories.

The ancestry of Robert Fitzharding's wife Eva is not certain. She was the founder and first abbess of the Augustinian nunnery of St Mary Magdalen on St Michael's Hill, Bristol, having endowed it with lands in Southmead. At the same time Robert's first daughter Helen married Roger's heir, also called Roger.