10 A MEDIAEVAL CITY

that obtained within the city walls. For the same
purpose a bell was rung at St. Michael's, Ouse Bridge.

There were a few buildings along the high-roads
just outside the great entrances, the Bars. Besides
the few hovels and huts there were hospitals for
travellers. There were four hospitals for lepers, the
most wretched of all the sufferers from mediaeval
lack of cleanliness.

Most of the streets were mere alleys, passages
between houses and groups of buildings. They
were very narrow and often the sky could hardly
be seen from them because of the overhanging upper
storeys of the buildings along each side. Goods in
the Middle Ages and right down to the nineteenth
century were carried in towns by hand. Carriages
and waggons and carts were not very numerous
and would have no need to proceed beyond
the main streets and the open squares. If men
must journey off their own feet, they rode
horses. Pack-horses were used regularly to carry
goods, where nowadays a horse or, more probably,
a steam or motor engine would easily pull the goods
conveniently placed on a cart or lorry.

The paving of rough cobbles and ample mud was
distinctly poor. There was no adequate drainage ;
in fact there was very little attempt at any
beyond the provision of gutters down the middle
or at the sides of the streets. There were no regular
street lights, and pavements, when they existed,
were too meagre to be of much use to pedestrians.

Streets led to the two open market-places of this
mediaeval city. Both of them (Thursday Market,
now called St. Sampson's Square, and Pavement,
which was a broad street with a market cross near
one end) were used as markets, but for different
kinds of produce. Some markets, such as the