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.[1] He was a wealthy Bristol merchant and a financier of the future King Henry II of England (1133-1189) in the period known as the Anarchy during which Henry's mother, the Empress Matilda (1102-1167), mounted repeated military challenges to King Stephen (d. 1154). Fitzharding founded St. Augustine's Abbey, which after the Reformation became Bristol Cathedral.[2] Many members of the Berkeley family were buried within it, and some of their effigies survive there. As J. 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]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Verey176 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bettey15_19 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, "An Approved Pre-Conquest Pedigree", pp.13–22