by the physical obstacles which had cramped the growth of the city on the hill, sprang up around the two churches of S. Mary-le-Wigford and S. Peter-at-Gowts.[99] Some fifty years later Lincoln was counted one of the most populous and flourishing cities in England.[100] The roads which met on the crest of its hill to branch off again in all directions formed only one of the ways by which trade poured into its market. Not only had the now dirty little stream of Witham a tide strong enough to bring the small merchant vessels of the day quite up to the bridge: it was connected with the Trent at Torksey by a canal, probably of Roman origin, known as the Foss Dyke; this after centuries of neglect was cleared out and again made navigable by order of Henry I.,[101] and through it there flowed into Lincoln a still more extensive trade from the lower Trent Valley and the Humber. The “men of the city and the merchants of the shire” were already banded together in a merchant-gild;[102] and it is doubtless this gild which is represented by the “citizens of Lincoln” who in 1130 paid two hundred marks of silver and four marks of gold for the privilege of holding their city in chief of the king.[103] [95] Domesday, vol. i. p. 336 b. [96] G. T. Clark, _Lincoln Castle_ (_Archæol. Journal_, vol. xxxiii. pp. 215–217). [97] “Sancta Maria de Lincoliâ in quâ nunc est episcopatus,” Domesday, vol. i. p. 336. The patron saint of this older church, however, was the Magdalene, not the Virgin. See John de Schalby’s _Life of Remigius_, in Appendix E. to Gir. Cambr. (Dimock), vol. vii. p. 194, and Mr. Freeman’s remarks in preface, _ib._ pp. lxxx., lxxxii. [98] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 177 (Hamilton, p. 312). Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 30. [99] See Domesday, vol. i. p. 336 b, and Mr. Freeman’s remarks in _Norm. Conq._, vol. iv. pp. 218, 219. [100] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 177 (Hamilton, p. 312). [101] Sim. Durh. _Gesta Reg._ a. 1121. [102] Said to date from the time of Eadward; Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 166. [103] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 114. [Illustration: Plan III. LINCOLN in the XII century. Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co. ]