BUSINESS LlFfi 41

the way in which all the King's affairs were being
conducted in each locality. They supervised the
work of the sheriffs.

Galtres Forest and the Fish Pond, both royal
property, helped to furnish the king's table with food.
From the royal Larder at York such foodstuffs
as venison, game, and fish were despatched salted
to wherever the King required them.

C. BUSINESS LIFE

Business, in one form or another, was the occupa-
tion of the majority of the citizens. There were a
few capitalist merchants, many traders, and
thousands of employed workpeople, skilled and
unskilled. Such street names as Spurriergate,
Fishergate, Girdlergate, Hosier Lane, and Colliergate
would suggest that men in the same trade had their
premises in the same quarter, possibly in the same
street.

The English middle class, which had taken form
in the fourteenth century, was well established in
the fifteenth century, when it became so important
as to be an appreciable factor in the national life.
The middle dass arose through currency, the use of
money to bring in more money by trading. Trade
became the monopoly of the middle class, the
successful master-traders. It was men of this
class, the capitalist employers, the merchants and
traders who were the mayors and aldermen,
who ruled the city. The exclusiveness, which
was eminently characteristic of this dass, appeared
especially in their attitude towards national taxation
and in that towards trade organisations. With
regard to taxation the towns persistently avoided the