Robert was born about 1086, the son of Geoffrey Martel de Baskerville but his mother is unknown. The place is not known.
He died after 1127. The place is not known.
His wife is not known. They were married, but the date and place have not been found. Their three known children were Ralph (c1100-1149), Thomas (c1117-?) and James (c1120-?).
| | | |||||||
| | ||||||||
| | | | ||||||
| | ||||||||
| | | |||||||
| |
| Event | Date | Details | Source | Multimedia | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth | ABT 1086 | ||||
| Death | AFT 1127 |
Note 1
!Alias: Roger – The names Robert and Roger de Baskerville were likely used interchangeably in early Norman records. No separate line descends from a distinct “Roger,” and all land and titles converge under Robert .
He appears in Domesday , donated land to Gloucester Abbey in 1109, and was still active in 1121, when his "fee and service" were included in the dowry of Sibyl de Neufmarché. His sons Ralph and Thomas , and grandson Roger , confirm a single generational path.
!Note: Eardisley is sometimes listed among Robert’s holdings, but no Domesday evidence supports this. It likely entered the family through the marriage of Ralph de Baskerville to Sybil de Braose, heiress of Eardisley. It is excluded from Robert’s early land list.
— Confirmed Holdings of Robert :
Estate Notes
Brobury 2 hides
Stretton Sugwas 2+ hides
Yarsop 1+ hides
Yazor 5 hides
Brilley Hay in the wood, held of Gruffydd ap Maredudd
Gloucester 1 hide
!Source: Genealogy of the Baskerville Family and Some Allied Families Including the English Descent from 1266 A.D., by P. Hamilton Baskervill, 1912, page 17
in the Year A.D. 1109, 43 yers after the Conquest, Henry I, on the maarriage of his eldest daughter levied a territorial impost of three shillings fr every hide of land, and returns were made in consequence by the barons. &c, in which Adam de Port returns names of Radulphes de Baskerville and Hugo de Lacy, and that of Robertus de Baskerville.
!Source: ENGLISH UNTITLED NOBILITY A-C Foundation for Medieval Genealogy https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/enguntac.htm#_Toc157779256
ROBERT de Baskerville . The Historia sancti Petri Gloucestriæ records that "Robertus de Baskevilla", on returning from Jerusalem, donated "unam hidam extra muros eiusdem civitatis", in 1109 "rege Henrico confirmante, tempore Petri abbatis" [abbot from 1104 to 1113][374].
!Source: The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. I. by The Duchess of Cleveland. Prepared by Michael A. Linton https://www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic%20DVD/library/Battle%20Roll/Baskeruile.html
…, n 1109, Robert de Baskerville, on his return from the Holy Land, granted lands to Gloucester Abbey . Either he, or another of the same name, held five knight's fees in 1165 of Hugh de Laci in Herefordshire; and Radulph de Baskerville one fee under Adam de Port in the same county. Combe continued theirs for at least 200 years; and they were frequent benefactors to St. Peter's Abbey, where one of them, Bernard de Baskerville, assumed the habit of a monk.
!Source: Eyton Vol 05 https://www.melocki.org.uk/eyton/Vol05.html
LAWTON.
The wife of Ralph de Baskervill [1150 - 1190] has been before alluded to as having remarried to Roger fitz William, suspected to have been her first husband's Murderer. This Lady was undoubtedly the same with Nesta ap Griffith [not likely see below], who after Ralph de Baskervill's death is said to have contested his grant of Trosdref Mill to the Monks of Brecknock. Ultimately she withdrew this opposition and became herself a Benefactress of the Priory. Her Quit-claim seems to show that she was surviving later than the year 1203. [5]
-
Note that Nesta, the daughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn has no known relatioship to the de Baskervilles. That Nesta actually married Bernard de Neufmarché and by 1125 had a grown son who killed his father, making her already in her 40’s and it possible, but unlikely for her to be involved with Robert de Baskerville born about 1086, but definitely impossible for her to be the wife of Sir Ralph [1150 - 1190], mentioned by Eyton, and unlikely for her to have been the mother of Robert’s sons. The Nesta ap Gruffydd refered to was the daughter of The Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd Prince of South Wales [1132 - 1197]. She was refered to because of her daughter Agnes, who married Sir Robert de Baskerville [~1173 - ] at a much later date. i’d love to see any real proof otherwise.
Coplestone-Crow, B. The Baskervilles of Herefordshire, 1086-1300. Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, Herefordshire. Vol. XLII, 1979, Part I, pp 18-39
https://www.woolhopeclub.org.uk/system/files/documents/transaction/woolhope-club-transactions-volume-xliii-1979-part-i.pdf
The first Baskervilles of whom we have any reliable record are Robert and
Ralph, who held lands in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire respectively in 1086.
Robert de Baskerville was a major under-tenant of Roger de Lacy in Hereford-
shire. He had 2 hides at Brobury, an unspecified quantity of land at Eardisley,
2+ hides at Stretton Sugwas, 1+ hides at Yarsop and 5 hides at
Yazor. He also had a hay in the wood at Mateurdin which he held of
Gruffydd ap Maredudd of Deheubarth.3 Ralph held 2 hides at Combe
Baskerville and 2 hides at Windrush in Gloucestershire of Roger de Lacy.4 Robert
witnessed a charter of the bishop of Hereford on behalf of Roger de Lacy in 1085
and was still alive in 1109, when on returning from Jerusalem he gave a hide of
land outside the city walls of Gloucester to the abbey there.s
ROGER DE BASKERVILLE
Roger, who was possibly a son of Robert, seems to have been one of the
lieutenants of Bernard de Neufmarehe in his conquest of the Welsh kingdom of
Brycheiniog in the years 1088 to 1093. According to William Rees he had lands
given him at Drostre within the later lordship of Pencelli.6 He
gave a burgess in Brecon to Brecon Priory in 1103-7.7 Roger seems to have begun
the process of organizing the lands he and his family had in Brycheiniog into some
sort of centralized lordship. This lordship eventually or simultaneously became
centred on the castle of Pencelli. When Bernard de Neufmarche gave his daugh-
ter Sibyl in marriage to Roger son of Miles of Gloucester in 1121, he gave as part
of her marriage portion in Brycheiniog 'the fee and service of Roger de Basker-
ville, of William Revel, of Robert de Turbeville and of Picard'.8 William Revel,
Robert de Turbeville and Picard held lands that were probably already organized
into the sub-lordships of Hay, Crughywel and Tretwr, the last two of which were
later held of the lords of Brecon by knight's service.9 It seems likely therefore that
Roger's lands too possessed a cohesion comparable with that of his associates in
Brycheiniog in the early 12th century.
Roger was still alive in 1127 when he witnessed along with Walter and Miles of
Gloucester, Robert de Turbeville and Picard a notification of Richard fitzPons of
Clifford conceding Aston to his wife Maud.'9 He may have
had lands in Elfael under Ralph de Tosny, lord of Clifford, before 1102 .
18
!Source: Full text of "A history of the county of Brecknock.
https://archive.org/stream/historyofcountyo02jone/historyofcountyo02jone_djvu.txt
A BASKERVILLE ONE OF THE BENEFACTORS.
-
About the same period the name of Baskerville appears conspicuous on the roll of benefactors
to the convent of Brecon. The first in the M.S. pedigrees of this family is Sir Ralph Baskerville,
who is said to have married Joan, the daughter of Rhydderch le gross of Arcop or Arcopp, whereupon
he settled in Herefordshire, and Sir Ralph Baskerville, his grandson, marrying Sibil, one of the daughters
of Adam de la Port, had with her a manor, lordship, and ample possessions in and about Eardisley
and Willersley, where they built a castle, or rather castellated mansion, wherein the elder branch of
the family resided, until the middle or latter end of the seventeenth century, and from whence they
spread by marriages into Aberedw, in Radnorshire, and the neighbourhood in which they still con-
tinue.^ Bernard Newmarch, though he did not think one of the ancestors of this family, who accom-
panied him in his expedition, of sufficient consequence to rank him among his knights, yet granted
him lands near Llandevailog tre'r graig and on the banks of the Llyfni, in Brecknockshire, for,
among the papers from which we are now extracting, we find a Robert or Roger Baskerville , by a charter, attested by Wilham de Breos and Maud his wife, and Jordan,^
archdeacon of Brecon, in consideration that the prior and monks will admit his son James into their
order, at the intercession of De Breos and his wife, grants them lands, the names of which are so
horridly disfigured that we are ashamed to introduce them, but he adds, if he shall not be able to
warrant these possessions to them, he will grant them sixty acres of land, ' quinqve solidatas terre,'*
being part of the lands brought him by his wife on their marriage, situated in the city of Worcester,
and then in the tenure of Osbert, the son of Gunnor, and he hkewise informs us that he and his
wife, in full chapter, had fraternized with the monks, and that their bodies and such part of their
property as ought to remain with or about them in the grave were to be buried there, whether they
died in Herefordshire or Breconshire, ' et sciendum est quod Ego et vxor mea suscepimus fraternitatem
illi^is ecclesie in capitulo ««o et in die obitus nostri corpora cum substantia, que sequi debit ibid sepelienda
ubicunque in comitatu Herefordie vel in provincia Brech. nobis contingatur.'
-
Ralph, another of this family, about the same period, gave them lands at Bredwardine, by a
charter attested by Wilham de Breos and his wife and William de Breos the younger, which he after-
wards confirmed Ijy another, in the presence of the elder de Breos and Maud de Saint Valeri, his
wife, and of Ralph Abbot of Wigmore. By two more instruments of the same nature, the first attested
by William de Oildebeof. then constable of Brecon, and William de Burchull, and the other, which he
confirmed by the impression of his seal, before Peter bishop of Saint David's, in the chapter of
Brecon, where he presented and caused it to be read before William de Breosa and many others,
French, Enghsh, and Welsh, clerks and laity, before whom he placed it upon the altar of Saint John ;
he gave to the convent a messuage, tenement and mill, called Trosdref mill, upon the river Llyfni,
with the tolls taken for grinding there, &c., " meum molendinum de Trosdref cum moltura, dbc, et
gurgitem et situm suum super Livini.' This grant was afterwards contested by Nest, the daughter of
Griffith and widow of this Ralph Ba.skerville, but the dispute ended by her recognizing the right of
the convent to the mill, discharging them of the arrears of the rent of a mark annually since the
death of her husband, and granting them a pound of incense yearly to pray for her soul.
-
The original grant of Robert or Roger Baskerville Avas again confirmed by Robert le Wafre,
who married Alice, one of his daughters, who describes it by the name of the mill of Llandevaillauc,
meaning Llandevailog tre'r graig, in which parish it was situated, and probably on the same spot
where it continues to this day. The witnesses are, Reginald de Breusia, Rich, le Bret. John de
Waldebeof, WiU. Pictaviensis or Peyton, Llewelyn son of Madoc, Will, de Burchull, Ralph the porter
{janitor) : and at a later period, though not long subsequent to these grants, Alice de Baskerville gave
to the same prior and convent a messuage or tenement, together with a croft, which Adam the smith
formerly held under her brother in the village of Bredwardine.
!Source: Internet Archive. Ancient charters, royal and private, prior to A.D. 1200. https://dn721602.ca.archive.org/0/items/ancientchartersr10grea/ancientchartersr10grea.pdf
OCR text, slightly cleaned:
H rex Angl. Archiepis. Epis. Abbibs. Com. Vic.
7 Omibe baronibe suis. franc. 7 Anglis. 7 fidelibe
suis toti Anglie. 7 Walie ; sal. Sciatis me dedisse. 7
firmit ccessisse Miloni de Gloec Sibilia filia Beorndi de
nouo mercato cu tota tra Beorn patris sui. 7 matris sue
po morte eoz. ul pri si uoluerint. scilicet in uita eoz. cu
hoc maritagio. scilicet Talgart. 7 foresta de Stradewi.
7 Castello de haia taillata. 7 tota tra de Bren. usq ad
diuisas tre Ric fil Pontii. scilicet usqe Canterbochan. 7
Coura qanda uilla in Anglia. 7 feodu. 7 seruitiu Rogi
de Baschieruulla. 7 feod. 7 seruit Willi reuelli 7 feod.
7 seruit Robti de Turbtuulla. 7 feod". 7 seruit Picardi.
Et uolo 7 pcipio. qd oms tenentes de pdicto Maritagio
faciant ei hominagiu ligiu in mea salua fidelitate sic dno
suo. Et oms tenentes totis tre pdicti Beorn similit
faciant ei hominagiu ligiu sic dno suo in mea salua
fidelitate. 7 Beorn qandiu tra tene uoluerit. Et hoc ei
dono. 7 ccedo. sicut emptione Beorn qua mi reddidit.
7 hoc req'sitione ipsis Beorn. 7 Yxoris sue. 7 Baronu
suoz. Et uolo , 7 firmit pcipio. ut ita bene. 7 honorifice
teneat. 7 q'ete. 7 libe. sic Beorn unqa melis. 7 honorifi-
centis tenuit. t. Rogo Epo sar. 7 Rob Epo linc. 7
Ran Cancell:. 7 Rob fit Regis. 7 Willo de Tancuilla. 7
Nig de Albin. 7 Pag fil Johis. 7 Gaufr fil Pag. 7
Gaufr de Glint. 7 Rad basset. 7 Willo de albin brit.
Ap Wintonia. Eod anno. in^ pascha. 7 Pentecost.
Rex dux in Vxore filia ducis de Luuain.
Google Translate:
H king of England Archiepis horse Abbibs Com. Vic.
7 Omibe his baronies French 7 English. 7 faithfully
to his whole England 7 Walie; salt You should know that I gave 7
affirms that he passed away to Milo of Gloec, Sibilia, daughter of Beorndi
the new market with all of his father's Beorn. 7 of his mother
after death ul pri if they will. namely, in the life of Eoz. with
this marriage of course Talgart 7 in the forest of Stradewi.
hold 7 what are you 7 book so Beorn unqa melis. 7 honorific
He held hundreds. t. I am asking Epo sar. 7 Rob Epo linc. 7
Ran Cancel:. 7 Rob becomes King. 7 Willo de Tancuilla. 7
Nig of Albin. 7 Pag fil Johis. 7 Gaufr becomes Pag. 7
Gaufr de Glint 7 Rad basset 7 Willo de Albin brit.
Ap Wintonia In that year in the Passover 7 Pentecost
King dux in Vxor, daughter of the duke of Luuain.
7 The castle was carved from these. 7 all through Bren. so on
diuisas tre Ric fil Pontius. of course until Canterbochan. 7
A small town in England. 7 fee 7 The service of Rogi <<<<
de Baschieruulla 7 fees 7 seruit Willi Reuel 7 fee
7 he succeeded Robert de Turbtuulla. 7 fee.
And I want to take 7 that all the holdings of the aforesaid marriage
Let them do him a little homage in my wholesome fidelity, thus
his own And oms holding all the three pdicts like Beorn
Let them pay homage to him like this in my life
faithfulness 7 Beorn willed to hold it for a long time. And this to him
gift 7 I leave as the purchase of Beorn which he returned to me.
7 this req'sition to Beorn himself. 7 Yxoris sue. 7 Baron
suoz. And I will, 7 affirms the pcipio. so well 7 honorifically.
NOTES. <<<< from source.
Its date, its witnesses, and the subject of this grant all combine to
make this charter one of exceptional importance.
The date is fortunately determined by the statement in the record
itself, and its limits are even further reduced by our knowledge that the
King, this year, spent his Easter at Berkeley, and was at Westminster by
Whitsunday [Ang. Sax. Chronicle].
Miles of Gloucester was the son of that Walter of Gloucester with
whom we have already met [p. 4]. His wife Sibyl was the daughter of
Bernard de Neufmarche, the conqueror of Brecon, by his Welsh wife. Nest.
She having declared that their heir Mahel was not her husband's son, he
was in consequence disinherited in favour of their daughter Sibyl [Giraldus
Cambrensis, Rolls Series, vi. 29]. By this charter their whole possessions
were secured to Sibyl at their death [or, if they would, before],
and she was bestowed in marriage on the son of a favourite officer
of the King, receiving as her immediate portion the manor of Talgarth,
the castle of Hay, the forest of Ystradyw [now the Hundred of Crickhowell
in south-east Brecon], and other lands, with the service of certain
knights' fees. "Coura" is Much Cowarne, co. Hereford, near Ullingswick
[vide infra., p. 19], the tithes of which were given by the family to St.
Peter's, Gloucester. In the Testa [p. 65] it is still entered as held of the
honour of Brecknock. The name of "haia taillata " should be noticed, as
giving us the origin of "Hay" and as representing apparently the French
"haie taillee," or cut hedge.
The incidental allusion to Richard Fitz Ponz shows him already in
possession of his Welsh property, "Cantref Bychan" [East Carmarthenshire,
lying along the left bank of the Towy, between it and Brecon]; and, in the
four tenants by knight-service on Sibyl's maritagium, we obtain valuable
genealogical evidence with an early mention of knights' fees. It should be
noticed that Bernard's knightly tenants are spoken of as his " barones."
The references to "liege homage," with the reservations in favour of
the royal supremacy and of Bernard's life-interest, are worthy of attention
The most important name in the list of witnesses is that of Robert,
“the king's son," who here attests in his rightful place at the head of all
the laity beneath the rank of earl. This charter is, therefore, evidence
that he was not yet Earl of Grloucester at the date of its execution. The
other witnesses are found in constant attendance at Court.
William Picard, probably representative of the Picard of this charter,
is found in the Liber Niger holding two knights' fees of Margaret de Bohun,
the heir of this marriage.
A dating clause of this character is, though common in cartularies,
rare in original charters. Its change from the first to the third person suggests
its addition by the scribe. There are other instances in point.
-
Notes: The following were not surnames, but given names and were used in true patronymics.
Paganus = Pain = Paen = Pagen = Payn. Ponz = Pons = Pontius.
Pons and Payn were different but parallel Norman given names:
Paganus = Payn/Paen/Fitz-Payn.
Pontius = Pons/Fitz-Pons.