8 A MEDIEVAL CITY

they are not at all so prominent as the great erections
of the Church and the State.

A glance over the city to-day from the Walls or
the top of a church tower emphasises the dominance
of the cathedral over the whole city. The castle
keep (Clifford's Tower) is still an important feature in
the view. There were as rivals neither factories nor
great commercial offices in the fifteenth-century city.

St. Clement's Nunnery and six churches, of
which three were not far from Walmgate Bar and
one was near Monk Bar, were actually outside the
city walls.

Without the city and the cultivated land near
by most of the country consisted of great
stretches of forest,1 i.e. wood, marsh, moor,
waste-land. This surrounding forest-land was crossed
by the few high-roads leading to and from the city,
which they entered through the Bars. The country-
was not all wild and tenantless, for here and there,
scattered about, were baronial castles and estates,
and monastic houses and lands, all of which had their
farming. In the forests there were villages each
consisting of a few houses grouped together for
common security, where lived minor officials and men
working in the forest. The great Forest of Galtres,
to the north of York, was a royal domain.

In the iif teenth century the population of York,
the greatest city of the north, was about 14,000.
Newcastle was the next greatest, being one of the
ten or twelve leading cities of mediaeval England
which had a total population of about 2,\ millions.
The inhabitants of York registered in 1911 numbered
83,802.

Wittoi the city there was a number of sub-
entities, each self-contained and definitely marked

1 Derived from Latin foris=outside, without (the city).