William the Conqueror gave Bideford to the son of Hamo the Toothy, Richard de Grenville, and the place has never since lost its association with the Granville family. Sir Theobald Granville in the fourteenth century was a large benefactor to the town in assisting in the building of the bridge, rendered advisable by the great loss of life at the ford or in the ferry. It was, however, said to have been set on foot at the prompting of Richard Gurney, the parish priest, who dreamed two nights running that there was a rock below the ooze on which a pier might rest. But one pier did not suffice, and how to sustain others on mud was a puzzle. It was--so tradition says--solved by sinking bags of wool and laying the bases of the piers on these, a story not so improbable as appears on the face. For a long time the vicars of Bideford had a herriot, that is, a right to the second best horse or cow of any parishioner who died. In 1529 this led to a scene. Sir William Coffin was passing one day by the churchyard, when, seeing a crowd collected, he asked the occasion, and learned that a corpse had been brought there to be interred, but that the vicar refused to read the burial service unless the dead man's cow were surrendered. But as the deceased had left no other property whatever, the heirs demurred. On hearing this Sir William sent for the priest, and reasoned with him on the impropriety of his conduct; however, the vicar was obstinate and would not give way. "Very well, then," said the knight, "stick me in the grave, and cover me up instead of the corpse, and you shall have my second best cow." He was proceeding to get into the grave, when the vicar thought prudent to yield. I suppose that the matter became notorious by the complaint of the parson, for Sir William was actually summoned before Parliament on a charge of violating the rights and privileges of the Church. But partly through his favour at court, and partly by his being able to represent the mischievous consequences of the arbitrary demand for "mortuaries," Parliament passed an act which put a stop to them, or, at all events, in favour of the poor, limited the extent of these claims. Bideford was not a place of much importance till the reign of Queen Elizabeth; it started into significance through the Newfoundland cod-fisheries, which were almost entirely in the hands of the Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bristol men as far as England was concerned. As early as 1504 the Portuguese had begun to catch fish on those coasts. In 1578 England had fifty vessels, Portugal as many, and France and Spain together, a hundred and fifty, occupied in reaping the harvest of the sea in the North Atlantic. From 1698 to 1700 Bideford had twenty-eight vessels engaged in the fishery, whilst Barnstaple had only seven or eight; London sent out seventy-one, and Topsham thirty-four.