Ralph Basset (sometimes Bassett;[1] died c. 1127) was a medieval English royal justice during the reign of King Henry I of England.
[2] Either Basset himself or an earlier person with the same name held lands of Robert d'Oilly that were recorded in Domesday Book as in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.
[3] Basset is named as one of the commissioners of the Liber Winton, a survey of the landholdings in the city of Winchester which took place at some point between 1103 and 1115,[5] probably close to 1110.
[8] Basset was noted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1124 as hanging 44 thieves,[9] during an eyre in Leicestershire.
Possibly, Basset's severity was part of an attempt to overawe the under-tenants of the Beaumont twins, one of whom, Waleran, Count of Melun rebelled during 1124.
[3] Basset is recorded in the Pipe Roll of 1130 as having performed judicial functions in 11 different shires,[8] even though by this point he was already dead.
[3] Basset also served on the informal vice-regency council that assisted Henry's wife and son when the king was out of England.
[3] According to the compiler of the Basset family charters, William Reedy, "there is more evidence for Ralph's service for the king in England" than for any other royal servant who was not clergy.
[15][b] Basset was the founding member of a dynasty of royal servants who continued to serve the kings of England until around 1250.
[16] The medieval writer and chronicler Orderic Vitalis described Basset as one of the new men of King Henry,[17] who "raised them, so to say, from the dust".