Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/257

Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire. •237 refer to a religious house here. There was also a nunnery, for a charter by Adeliza, queen of Henry L, gives to the church of Reading, Berkeley Hern, that is, the church of Berkeley, with its appended prebends, and the prebends " duarum monalium," which seems to refer to a nunnery. Camden says the nunnery was sup- pressed by Earl Godwin in the reign of the Confessor, and preserves a scandalous tale thereupon, which derives some support from a curious entry in Domesday, whence it appears that Gytha, the wife of Godwin and mother of Harold, had UUcestre, near Berkeley, from her husband, he having bought it from Azor that she might live there till she should live at Berkeley. "Nolebat enim de ipso manerio aliquid comedere pro destructione abbatiae." In Domesday, Berkeley appears as a royal demesne and free borough, which had been held by the Confessor, and belonged to William, but was held of him by Roger, called thence of Berkeley. It was the head of a soke or barony, for attached to it were " Berews," or members, in twenty-one adjacent parishes. The castle is not mentioned, but in " Ness," probably Sharpness, was a castel- lum, or castellet, claimed by the same Roger. His holding in the Liber Niger is set down as 2% knights' fees. He gave liberally to Stanley Priory, and died there 1096. William, his nephew, suc- ceeded, and had a son Roger, father of Roger, who all held Berkeley, and are designated by its name. This latter Roger was a partisan of King Stephen, and was turned out of Berkeley by Henry, who gave Berkeley to Robert, son of Hardinge, Praepositas of Bristol, who died 1 170, 16 Henry II., aged seventy-five, leaving Maurice Fitzhardinge, his son. To stanch the feud between the dispossessed and the new lord, Henry made up a double alliance : Helen, daughter ot Fitzhardinge, was married to a son of Roger de Berkeley, and Alice, Roger's daughter, to Maurice Fitzhardinge of Berkeley. The result was that the old Berkeleys fell back upon their manor of Cuberley, and finally died out, and the Fitzhardinges, with the estate, bore the surname of Berkeley, and have so continued. At that time the Manor or Lordship, sometimes called the Honour of Berkeley, included above thirty parishes, and extended over most of the hundred. It was rated at 160 hides, and paid a chief rent of ^70. Henry, at the time of the gift, was only Duke of Normandy, and weak, and Fitzhardinge was an important man ; hence the duke treats as equal with equal, and with the estate makes a promise to build him a castle to his taste. " Et pepigi ei firmare ibi castellum secundum voluntatem ipsius Roberti," and, on the other hand, Robert promises to be Henry's liege. Henry visited Berkeley in 1 155, when, no doubt, the present castle was begun. Henry's charter is in excellent preservation, and is kept at Berkeley. Another charter by Henry, when king, also there preserved, con- firms to Robert Fitzhardinge, Berkelai-Herness Manor by the service of one knight, or, if he prefer it, 100 shillings per annum. A third charter is almost a copy of the second, but states the service at live knights, and is silent as to the composition. There is also a charter