The Conquest was followed by an age of church-building in Bristol; the Bishop of Coutances built a castle with a chapel, outside the town on the east; new Norman lords rebuilt some of the parish churches. The new church of St. Mary le Port was built by William, Earl of Gloucester, before 1176. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, founded a Benedictine Priory outside the town, on the north. A little later Robert Fitz-Harding founded a Convent of Augustinian Canons on the other side of the River Frome, west of the town. A small nunnery was founded in 1173 by Eva, wife of W. Fitz-Harding, who became the first abbess. The first part of the thirteenth century was a time of great religious activity, and now and henceforth the work was done not by royal and noble founders, but by the zeal of the people themselves. A Dominican Friary[579] was founded in 1230, just outside the suburb east of the castle; the Carmelites were planted in “the fairest of the houses of the friars” (Leland), where Colston’s Hall now stands; the Franciscans in the suburb beyond the Frome on the north-west; and there was a hospital of Bonhommes, now the mayor’s chapel.

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BRISTOL, FROM G. BRAUN’S URBIUM PRAECIPUARUM
TOTIUS MUNDI, LIB. III, pl. 2. A.D. 1573.

In course of time some of these foundations attracted groups of people about them, whose houses grew into suburbs of the town. One suburb grew up around the castle on the south-east, and the spiritual wants of its people were supplied by the building among them of the new church of SS. Philip and James.[580] Another group of people settled about the priory, on the north, and attended service in the nave of the priory church, until at length the monks separated off the nave from the choir, and abandoned it to the people as their parish church, which still exists. The Austin Canons attracted still another group who formed a suburb on the south-west; and after a while the canons built the Church of St. Augustine the Less for their tenants.[581]

In the reign of Henry III. the townspeople enlarged their limits by enclosing a tract on the south within a new wall. The new space was gradually filled with streets of houses, and St. Stephen’s Church seems to have been built for the use of this new quarter.

Bristol Cathedral.

Bristol grew not only by the enlargement of its own borders, but by the annexation of adjoining districts, which already had their own civil jurisdictions and ecclesiastical organizations. On the other side of the Avon were two districts which had been growing in population and commercial importance. One of these was the estate which Robert, Earl of Gloucester, had given in 1145 to the Knights of the Temple; its parish church was dedicated to the Holy Cross; and there was a house of Austin Friars within the parish. Adjoining the Temple Fee lay the Manor of Redcliff, in Bedminster, belonging to the Fitz-Hardings, with its chapel of St. Thomas, first mentioned in 1232. By the end of the twelfth century Bristol had, after a sort, spread itself over both Temple and Redcliffe, and a charter of 1188 included them in the privileges granted to Bristol. In 1240 a stone bridge was built which connected the two sides of the river; and a new wall and ditch from one angle of the river to the other (see the plan) enclosed the two districts on the southern side, and bound them by a series of fortifications, continuous with those of the northern side, into one great town. The necessary legal measures incorporated the groups into one borough.

The Bristol merchants were wealthy and magnificent. The great merchant Canynges rebuilt the greater part of the noble Church of St. Mary Redcliffe; others adorned the town, and added to its religious opportunities by founding chapels for special services; others built hospitals and almshouses; others founded chantries in various churches. Thus the vill of the Saxon kings, with its one church, grew at last into the great city which at the time of the Reformation possessed the list of ecclesiastical foundations named below with references to the plan.[582]