78 A MEDIAEVAL CITY

generally big. Long and pointed shoes were
characteristic, but it wras the cloak that proved so
effective a piece of dress, the cloak that has such
scenic possibilities, that can so nicely express
character. There were only few kinds of personal
ornament. The most usual wrere
brooches, belts, chains, and pen-
dants, and especially finger-rings,
of which the signet ring was a
popular form.

The nobles, great landowners, in
many cases of Norman origin, were
lords over a considerable number of
people. York, being a royal city,
escaped many of the troubles con-
sequent on rule by an immediate
overlord. Besides himself, his famity,
and personal servants, a lord pro-
vided for a retinue of armed re-
tainers, who formed a kind of
body-guard and a force to serve
the king as occasion demanded;
in addition, important household
officials, such as secretaries and
treasurers. Among noblemen's fol-
*N \EBOT lowers there were many dependents,
some, no doubt, parasites, but a
number, especially if literary men, in need of
patronage to help them to live as well as to pursue
their vocation.

The different kinds of religious men have already
been mentioned from archbishops and abbots to
the scurrilous impostors who used a religious exterior
to rob poor people, at whose expense they lived well
a wandering, loose, hypocritical life. In York,
there were monks and friars, cathedral, parochial,