80 A MEDIAEVAL CITY

number of the York trade-guilds. The social
position of women in the retrograde fifteenth century
fully agrees with the absence of women from among
those who achieved notability in the city during
the century.

The most interesting type of citizens was that
composed of the freemen, who formed the vast
majority of the inhabitants. As the name implies,
they were historically the descendants of the men
who in earlier times were freed from serfdom. It
was the freemen who, through the Mayor and
Corporation, paid rent to the King for the city, its
rights and possessions. There are still, it may be
noted, freemen of the city, distinct from those
distinguished men who have received its honorary
freedom. The main privileges of the mediaeval
freemen included the right of trading in the city,
and of voting. They also had rights over the
common lands attached to the city, and they were
eligible to fill the offices of local civic government
if thought wealthy enough to be elected into such
a " close self-elected corporation/'

Soldiers of the royal army were stationed in
York at the Castle. The Wars of the Roses, wars
of kings and nobles, lasted from 1455 to 1485 and,
although York itself hardly experienced the warfare,
it saw contingents of the forces of both sides, as well
as the leaders and royal heads of both parties.

There lived in the city a number of men in the
royal service. Some worked at the administrative
offices of the royal forest of Galtres, Davy Hall,
where the chief officer himself dwelt. There were
also the men who worked at the royal Fish Pond
near which was Fishergate in which street most of
these men lived.

Those afflicted with leprosy, a disease which in