Berkeley family Berkeley family The Berkeley family is an aristocratic English family, nearly unique in English history in that it has to this day an unbroken male line of descent from a noble Saxon ancestor before the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and also retains possession of much of the lands it held from the 11th and 12th centuries, centred on Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which still belongs to the family. The Berkeley family descends in the male line from Robert Fitzharding (d.1170), 1st feudal baron of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, reputedly the son of Harding of Bristol, the son of Eadnoth the
Baron Berkeley each baron were coined by John Smith of Nibley (d.1641), steward of the Berkeley estates, the biographer of the family and author of "Lives of the Berkeleys". The feudal barony of Berkeley was created "circa" 1155, when King Henry II granted the royal castle of Berkeley to the Anglo-Saxon royal financier Robert Fitzharding under the feudal land tenure "per baroniam". Prior to that time Berkeley Castle had been held in fee-farm by Roger I "de Berkeley" (d.1093), a Norman nobleman, possibly a son of Roger I of Tosny (died circa 1040), who acquired the surname "de Berkeley". Roger I "de