| Richard Basset | |
|---|---|
| Royal Justice | |
| In office c. 1120 – c. 1135 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Died | between 1135 and 1144 |
| Spouse(s) | Matilda |
| Children | Geoffrey Ridel Ralph Basset William Basset Sibil Matilda |
| Occupation | Royal justice |
Richard Basset (died between 1135 and 1144) was an English royal judge and sheriff during the reign of King Henry I of England. His father was also a royal justice. In about 1122 Basset married the eventual heiress of another other royal justice; the marriage settlement has survived. In 1129 and 1130 Basset was sheriff of a number of counties together with another nobleman. Basset and his wife founded a monastic house in 1125 from of their lands, which before the donation were equivalent to 15 knight's fees. After Basset's death between 1135 and 1144 his lands were granted to his son.
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Basset was the son of Ralph Basset,[1] who was also a royal justice under Henry I. It is unclear whether Richard was Ralph's eldest son or not. Richard inherited Ralph's estates in Normandy, which were near Montreuil-au-Houlme. He also inherited his father's English estates at Colston Basset, Kingston Winslow, and Peatling Parva. Basset's brother Nicholas signed over his own inheritance to Richard.[2] Ralph Basset was one of the "new men" of Henry I, and his son was also considered to be so.[3][4] William Basset, the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of the abbey of St Benet of Hulme, may have been a relative, as he granted lands to Richard Basset in return for a ₤10 annual rent.[5] Another relative may have been the Robert Basset who nine times witnessed charters of Ranulf de Gernon, Earl of Chester.[6]
Basset served as Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire and Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, together with Aubrey de Vere, in 1129 and 1130.[1] He was also sheriff with de Vere in the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Surrey.[2] The number of shrievalties was unusual, and is known from the Pipe Roll of 1130. According to the entries in the Pipe Roll, de Vere and Basset did not function as traditional sheriffs in their counties, farming the revenues, but were instead responsible for the entire royal revenue in those counties.[7]
As well as his service as a sheriff, Basset also served as a royal justice, hearing pleas in Leicestershire in 1129 and 1130.[8] Other royal service included being sent to Peterborough Abbey in 1125 to oversee the abbey's lands after the death of the abbot. The revenues of a vacant abbey went to the king, and Basset's job was to secure Peterborough's income for King Henry.[9] Between 1131 and 1133 Basset appears to have been a frequent attendee at the royal court, as he witnessed a number of documents. Included among these attestations are some originating at the councils held at Northampton in 1131 and another at Westminster in 1132. Basset witnessed no royal documents after 1133, when King Henry left for Normandy for the final time.[10]
After King Henry's death in 1135, Basset was not employed as a royal official, either as a justice or as a sheriff. He appears once as a witness to a charter of Stephen's in 1136, but the authenticity of this document has been questioned. He had built a castle in Normandy at Montreuil-au-Houlme, but it was not held by him in 1136, when it was held against Stephen's opponents by William de Montpincon.[10]
Basset held lands that totaled approximately 176 hides, but they did not form a compact estate, as they were spread over 11 counties.[11] In 1135, Basset's lands totalled 184.25 carucates of land, and were considered to be the equivalent of 15 knight's fees. These lands would have been about 1,500 acres (610 ha), calculateded at the normal rate of about 120 acres (49 ha) per carucate.[12] In Leicestershire, Basset held most of the lands previously held by Robert de Buci at the time of the Domesday Survey. The lands were held by Basset in right of his wife, but how the lands had passed into her family is unclear. These lands were held directly from the king, but in addition, Basset held more land in Leicestershire from both King David I of Scotland and from Robert de Beaumont, the Earl of Leicester.[13]
Basset founded an Augustinian Order priory at Launde in Leicestershire,[14] together with his wife.[10] This priory, Launde Priory, was founded by 1125, and was endowed with the village of Loddington in Leicestershire and a number of churches in that county and others.[15]
Basset married Matilda, the daughter and eventual heiress of Geoffrey Ridel, some time between 1120 and 1123.[1] Matilda had a brother Robert, who was mentioned in her marriage settlement, by the terms of the settlement Robert Ridel was placed in the wardship of Basset until he was knighted and married.[2] The document of the marriage settlement survives, and describes Matilda's dowry as being worth four knight's fees.[16] Basset also received the right to arrange Matlida's sister's marriages and was to marry Robert Ridel to Basset's niece, with Robert's lands reverting to Basset if Robert had no children.[16] Not long after the settlement was written, Basset was in possession of the lands that should have been Robert's.[2]
Basset witnessed a royal charter in 1135 but was dead by 1144, when his lands were granted by the Empress Matilda and her son Henry to Richard's son Geoffrey Ridel. Other sons were Ralph Basset, who held lands near Drayton, and William Basset, who held lands near Sapcote.[1] William became a royal justice and sheriff like his father.[10] Richard also had two daughters: Sibil, who married Robert de Cauz, and Matilda, who married John de Stuteville.[1] Ralph inherited the ancestral lands in Normandy.[2] The Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis wrote that Basset built a tower on his anccestral lands of Montreuil in Normandy, purely to increase his own importance.[3]