(French) belongingto Bacqueville (Normandy), anciently Bascavilla (A.D. 1055), Baschevilla (1133),Bascherville (1151), Basqueville (1366) = prob. Bassac’s or Bassoc’s Vill or Estate. [Förstemann (Altdeutsches Namenbuch, ed. 1900) notes an ancient name Bassac as having yielded the Mod. Ger. Basch(e, Baske;-+ French ville, Latin villa] Thomas de Baschevill, alias Baskervill.

—Testa de Nevill.

The forms Baskeville and Baskervile occur in the copies of the Roll of Battle Abbey.

The r in the name Baskerville is there­fore intrusive.

BASKERVILLE: The head of this family was at the battle of Hastings, (Taylor's Roman de Rou, p. 229.) He is styled Martels de Basqueville (Ibid). The parish of Baskerville, now Bacqueville, is in the arrondissement of Dieppe. One of his descendants, who was butler to king Stephen, resumed the name of (William) Martel.

BASKERVYLE: The same as Buskervilie. According to Ormorod's Cheshire, iii, 355, the Baskervyles of Old Withington, now Glegg, are descended from Sir John Baskervyle, grantee of a moiety of Withirigton in 1266, and that estate has ever since remained in the family.

From Bacqueville, near Rouen. Baldwin Teutonicus, c. 990, was ancestor of this family, and of D’Aunou, Courcy, Beaugency, and Neville. In 1109 Robert de Baskerville, on his return from Palestine, granted lands to Gloucester Abbey (Mon. i. 115). Several branches of the family still remain.

Baskerville: Martels de Basqueville was in the Battle of Hastings, yet the name does not occur in Domesday. Possibly he may have fallen in the battle. “At the beginning of the thirteenth century there were Baskervilles in Herefordshire, Nottinghamshire, and Shropshire; in Warwickshire, Norfolk, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, and possibly other counties” (Eyton, “Shropshire.”). The most eminent branch was that of Eardesley. One single branch is now represented in the male line, and that has changed its name to Glegg. There are two others, but through the spindle, who have assumed the name of Baskerville. It is not uncommon among the peasantry of Devon.

Boskerville: from Boscherville, between Pont-Audemer and Honfleur. Not in Domesday or Wace, but probably came over with the Conqueror, as the name occurs early in the twelfth century.

A branch of the very ancient and distinguished family of Baskerville, which claims royal descent, possessed the manor of Old Withrington from the 13th to the 18th century (O.). The Herefordshire stock, members of which were high sheriffs of that county in the 15th and 16th centuries, carries its pedigree back to the reign of Edward I. (Duncumb's "Herefordshire"). The Baskervilles were represented in Shropshire in the 13th century (H. R.). In Staffordshire the name has been corrupted to Baskeyfield. In Cheshire the Baskervilles are now mostly found in the Chelford district.