still alive.[74] After visiting Barnstaple and Totnes[75] they turned northward towards the greatest seaport of the west, and indeed, with one exception, of all England: Bristol. [65] Herman. Mon., l. ii. cc. 10, 11 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog. Opp._, pp. 537, 538). [66] _Ib._ l. ii. c. 12 (p. 539). [67] _Gesta Stephani_ (Sewell), p. 21. [68] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 94 (Hamilton, p. 201). [69] _Ibid._ [70] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 13 (p. 539). [71] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 13. [72] _Ibid._ [73] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 14 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog. Opp._, p. 539). [74] _Ib._ l. ii. cc. 15, 16 (pp. 539, 540). [75] _Ib._ l. ii. cc. 17–19 (p. 540). [Illustration: Plan II. BRISTOL in the XII century. Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co. ] To trace out the Bristol of the twelfth century in the Bristol of to-day is a matter of difficulty not only from the enormous growth of the town, but from the changes which have taken place in the physical conformation of its site. Nominally, it still stands on the peninsula formed by the junction of the Frome and the Avon; but the courses of both rivers have been so altered and disguised that the earlier aspect of the place is very hard to realize. The original Bristol stood wholly upon the high ground which now forms the neck of the peninsula, then a small tongue of land surrounded on the south-east by the Avon, on the north, west and south by the Frome, which flowed round it almost in the form of a horse-shoe and fell into the Avon on the southern side of the town, just below the present Bristol Bridge.[76] Before the Norman conquest, it seems, the lower course of the Frome had already been diverted from its natural bed;[77] its present channel was not dug till the middle of the thirteenth century, across a wide expanse of marsh stretching all along the right bank of both rivers, and flooded every day by the tide which came rushing up the estuary of Severn almost to the walls of the town, and made it seem like an island in the sea.[78] Within its comparatively narrow limits Bristol must have been in general character and aspect not unlike what it is to-day--a busy, bustling, closely-packed city, full of the eager, active, surging life of commercial enterprise. Ostmen from Waterford and Dublin, Northmen from the Western Isles and the more distant Orkneys, and even from Norway itself, had long ago learnt to avoid the shock of the “Higra,” the mighty current which still kept its heathen name derived from the sea-god of their forefathers,[79] and make it serve to float them into the safe and commodious harbour of Bristol, where a thousand ships could ride at anchor.[80] As the great trading centre of the west Bristol ranked as the third city in the kingdom,[81] surpassed in importance only by Winchester and London.