Life in a mediaeval city

LIFE IN

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

ILLUSTRATED BY

YORK IN THE XVth CENTURY

BY

EDWIN BENSON, b.a.

WITH EIGHT 1LLVSTRATTctNG

LONDON:

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1920

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

INTRODUCTION ... ... ••• ••• 1

CHAPTER II

IMPORTANT FACTORS AFFECTING THE HISTORY OF YORK ... 3

(a) Geographical position, 3; ( 3 ) Military value of its
position, 4; (c) Political importance, 4

CHAPTER III

APPEARANCE ... ... ••• ••• 6

A. General appearance

Church, State, p i, 6 ; outside the city, 8 ; population,

8 ; area-dki§ions'~9

B. Streets

Highways, .traffic, open-spaces, 9 ; Ouse Bridge, 11

C. Buildings

Dwelling-houses, shops, inns, 12; civic buildings (guild¬
halls), 16; fortifications (castle, city walls, bars), 17 j
religious buildings (Minster, 19; St. William’s College,

23 ; St. Mary’s Abbey, 24; Friaries, 24; St. Clement’s
Nunnery, 25 ; Hospitals, 25 ; Parish Churches, 26)

D. York as a Port , 28

IV

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV

LIFE

A. Civic Life

City government, the parishes, 30 ; extra municipal rights, 31 ;
a royal city, 31 ; charters, 32 ; sheriffs, 32 ; mayor, 32 ; city
councils, 32 ; civic spirit, 33 ; city and trade rule, 34 ; royal
government, 34 ; punishments, 34 ; sanctuary, 35

B. Parliamentary and National Life

Leasing of royal power, 36 ; Parliament, 37; visits of
Henry IV., 3S ; Wars of Roses, 39 ; Duke of Gloucester,
40 ; judges of assize, 40 \ royal larder, 41

C. Business Life

Middle class of merchant employers, 41 ; Jews and Italians,
42 ; professions, 43 ; wool trade, 43 ; trade-guilds, 44 ; their
government, 44; strangers, 45 ; phases of guild life, 45 ;
merchants, 46 ; apprentices, 46 ; working hours, 47 ; trades,
47; artist craftsmen, 49 ; markets and fairs, 50; overseas
trade, 51 ; money, 52 ; extracts from ordinances, 52

D. Religious Life

The Church in the Middle Ages, 54; the Church and daily
life, 56 ; merchants and religion, 57; the Church and educa¬
tion, 59; work of hospitals, 59; priests (at Minster, 60;
parish churches, 60; Archbishop, 61); pluralism, 62 ;
religious orders, 62 ; monastic life, 64 ; St. Mary’s Abbey, 64;
Anchorites, 65 ; other types of religious (pardoner, palmer,
pligrim), 65 ; Church services, 67

E. Edit cation

Higher education, 67 ; grammar schools, 67; elementary
education, 68 ; educational welfare work, 68 ; instruction, 68 5

CONTENTS

v

PAGE

the ways in which the citizen got news and information,

69; vocations, 70; literacy in fifteenth century, 70;
mediaeval learning, 71 ; Revival of Learning, 71

F, Jb n ter tain ments

Holidays, travelling, 72 ; mediaeval plays, 72 ; York plays, 73 ;
Corpus Christ! Day Processions, 74 > production of pageants,

75 ; other forms of entertainment, 77 ; archery, 77

G. Classes

Fashions and dress, 77 ; nobles, 78 ; leligioiis, 78 ; townspeople,

79 ; women, 79 ; the freemen, So ; soldier*, Sc ; men in ro>al
service, So; lepers, So ; visitors (kings, lords, commoners,

Sr ; judges. Si ; sailors, Si) serfs, Si

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION ... ... ... ... _ g 2

York a city of destruction and a “storehouse of the past '

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

YORK IN THE XVTH CENTURY ... ... Vlll-Xl

(From a drawing by E. Ridsdale Tate)

COOKING WITH THE SPIT ... •** **’ **’ 12

(From the Louttrell Psalter)

BISHOP AND CANONS

( From Richard His “Book of Hours”)

knights doing penance at a shrine ... ... **• o7

(From a XVth Century MS.)

administration of holy communion with housel cloth 54

( From a XIVth Century MS .)

SEMI-CHOIR OF FRANCISCANS

(From a XVth Century MS.)

63

archery

(From the Louttrell Psalter)

72

AN ABBOT

78

YORK

IN THE XVth CENTURY

FROM A DRAWING BY

E. RIDSDALE TATE

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I N English histoty the fifteenth century is the
last of the centuries that form the Middle Ages,
which were preceded by the age of racial settlement
and followed by that of the great Renaissance.
Although the active beginnings of this new era are
to be observed in the fifteenth century, yet this
century belongs essentially to the Middle Ages.

Perhaps the most attractive feature of the
Middle Ages is that they were so intensely human.
A naive spirit appears in their formal literature, as
in Chaucer's account of the Canterbury pilgrims, in
their decorated religious manuscripts, in their
thought, and very characteristically, in their archi¬
tecture, which combines a simple naturalness with
a bold and daring ingenuity. From columns, the
constructional motive of which is so simple and
natural, and walls pierced with windows, they
erected systems of lofty arches and high stone-
vaulted roofs, the stability of which depended' on
very skilled balancing of thrust and counter-thrust.

To-day mediaeval buildings are to be found all
over England. The majority of them are examples
of an architecture that has not been surpassed for
majesty, beauty, size, and constructional skill.

1

2

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

Such buildings, without the help of the literary and
other memorials, testify by themselves to the
greatness of the Middle Ages.

Through the fifteenth century England continued
to be in a state of political unrest. There were
wars and risings both abroad and at home, for
besides the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) and
the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) there were wars
with the Welsh and the Scots, as well as disorders
made by powerful, intriguing barons. The barons
and great landowners took advantage of the weak
royal rule to increase their own power. Parliament,
especially the House of Commons, succeeded in the
first half of the century in strengthening its consti¬
tutional position, but during the Wars of the Roses
it became less truly representative of the solid part
of the nation, the middle class, and more and more
a party machine worked by the baronial factions.
The proportion of people wanting peace and firm
government steadily increased, and, when the
internecine Wars of the Roses, which affected the
lords and kings far more than the people, were
followed by the protection and order provided
without excessive cost by the Tudors, it was the
people who most welcomed the change.

The towns were, however, comparatively little
disturbed by these perpetual disorders. The mayors
and corporations as a rule guided their cities through
difficult times with politic shrewdness. Town life
developed through flourishing trade and an increasing
sense of municipal unity, and municipal importance.

CHAPTER II

IMPORTANT FACTORS AFFECTING THE HISTORY OF
YORK

A. Geographicae Position

A MONG the factors affecting this particular city
geographical position is evidently the most
important. It is to this, combined with the con¬
sequent military value of the site, that York owes its
origin as a city, its importance in the Middle Ages
and its practical importance to-day. York, which
is the natural centre for the North of England, is the
halfway house between London and Edinburgh, and
is on the shortest and quickest land or air route,
however the journey is made, between these two
capitals. The Ouse and Humber have enabled it
always to be within navigable distance of the
North-East coast. The city itself is situated on
an. advantageous site in the centre of a great
plain, the north and south ends of which are open.
The surrounding hills and valleys are so disposed
that a large number of rivers radiate towards the
centre of the plain. Civilisation—if we must rank
the ultra-fierce Norsemen, for instance, among its
exponents—proceeded westwards from the coast,
and wave after wave of the invading peoples crossed
with ease the eastern and north-eastern hills, which
are far less formidable than those on the west.
York was already an important place in the days of

3

4

A MEDIEVAL CITY

Britain’s making, the days when the land was in
the melting-pot as far as race and nationality are
concerned.

B. Military Value of its Position

York is situated on the higher ground, in the
angle made by the rivers Ouse and Foss at their
junction ; a little to the south, the east and the w T est
there are low ridges of mound. The outer, main
series of hills which border the central plain, are
some dozen miles away, their outer faces being more
or less parallel and running very roughly north and
south. It seems clear that the site was chosen from
the first for its immediate defensive value, the
direct result of its geographical features. The
position was of both tactical and strategic importance.
In Roman times, however, its tactical value de¬
creased when the great wall was built that stretched
with its lines of mound, ditch, stone-rampart, and
road, and its series of camps and forts, from near
the mouth of the T} r ne to Solway Firth. Henceforth
the wall marked the debatable frontier, but York
never lost its strategic value. It w r as thus used by
the Romans, William I., Edward I., Edwrnrd II., and
Edward III. in their occupation of and their expe¬
ditions against the North. It has served as a base
dep6t and military headquarters for centuries.

C. Political Importance

York, then, whatever its name (for it had many
names) or condition, inevitably became an occupied
place, a stronghold or a town from earliest times.
When the Church attained great importance in
the north, York, in addition to its natural and

POLITICAL IMPORTANCE

5

military values became, in 733, an ecclesiastical
metropolis, for from this date the Archbishop of
York was not only the ruler of the diocese of York,
but in addition spiritual head of the Church in the
North of England. Further, there were established
in the city branches of the civil government.
Business of the state, both civil and military, and
of the Church was regularly conducted at York from
early times. This political importance lasted long
and is intimately connected with many events in
the city's history. The fort and military defences
were renewed from time to time, and staff-work
and general administration, whether Roman or
Edwardian, were conducted from York. The king,
from whom York was rented by the citizens, had his
official representatives with their offices permanently
established here. The siege of 1644 after the
royalist defeat at Marston Moor, was due mainly to
the political importance of the city. In Danish
times there w T ere kings of York. The Archbishops,
besides owning large areas of land in and around the
city, had their palace in the city. Monasteries grew
up and flourished till the Dissolution ; churches and
other religious buildings were everywhere. Further,
from century to century, York was the home of
important nobles of the realm.

This political importance has persisted through
the centuries. York still claims its traditional rank of
second city in the kingdom.

CHAPTER HI

APPEARANCE

A. General Appearance

A GENERAL view of fifteenth-century York
(“ Everwyk ” in Anglo-French and “ Ebora-
cum ” in Latin) would give the impression of a very
compact city within fortifications. Almost immedi¬
ately it would be noticed how the three great
elements of national society were very clearly
reflected in the general appearance. First, the
Church, the tremendous and ubiquitous power of
which is emphasised by the strikingly beautiful
and wonderfully constructed massive Minster, but
so recently completed, standing, with its more than
five hunched feet of length, its central tower two
hundred feet high, most of its roofs a hundred feet
or more above the ground, dwarfing the petty,
storied dwellings. This is but one great church.
In brilliant contrast in another quarter, adjoining
the city, is the great abbey church of St. Mary,
crowned by a lofty and magnificent spire rising
above the equally fine conventual buildings. All
over the city are seen the churches and buildings of
other monastic and religious houses. The background
of dwellings and shops, built in a similar style, is cut
by a few winding streets, and studded with the
towers, spires, and roofs of the multitude of parish
churches. The intense and far-reaching influence

6

GENERAL APPEARANCE t

of the Church in all phases of life is indelibly marked
on this dty.

The great influence of the royal State, second
only to that of the Church, appears in the enclosing
fortifications and especially in the solid stance of
the Castle, where the keep stands out stoutly on its
fortified mound. The whole castle, self-supporting
within its owm defences, its massive walls, broad
moats, outer and inner w T ards, protected gateways,
drawbridges and other tactical devices, convej’-s an
impression of power. On the Bishop-hill side of
the river there remains the mound (Baile Hill) on
which the other castle was erected by order of
William the Conqueror. The wfhole city is enclosed
by defensive works consisting of an embattled wall
on a mound, with a moat or protecting ditch running
parallel to it. At intervals along the u r alls there
are towers. Where the four main roads enter the
city there are the four gateways, or Bars, high
enough to act as w 7 atch-towers and fit by their solid
construction to offer a stout defence. The royal
State keeps its stem watch around and within.

The third great element, the People, are repre¬
sented by the few narrow, winding streets and the
crowded houses, sending up blue smoke from their
hearths, clustering round the great buildings of
Church and State. The town itself is almost entirely
in the eastern section of the city. On the western
side the houses are grouped along the river bank and
between Micklegate Bar and Ouse Bridge ; there are
several monasteries and churches in this section
also. The third estate, the closely living masses,
the people, has its outstanding buildings, but these
are of comparatively local and small importance.
Although the city and guild halls stand out utili¬
tarian yet beautiful above the dwelling-houses, yet

a

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 fifteenth 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 millions.
The inhabitants of York registered in 1911 numbered
83,802.

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

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

STREETS

9

off, often by enclosing, embattled walls. Such
was the Minster, which stood within its close.
The Liberty of the Minster of St. Peter included
the parts of the city immediately round the Minster,
the Archbishop’s Palace, and the Bedern (a small
district in the city where some of the Minster clergy
lived collegiately), and groups of houses and odd
dwellings scattered throughout other parts of the
city and the county and elsewhere. Individual
monasteries formed further such sub-entities; for
instance St. Mary’s Abbey, which w r as actually
outside the city walls, but within its own defensive
walls; the Franciscan Friary near the Castle;
Holy Trinity Priory ; the royal Hospital of St.
Leonard. The Castle, which obviously had to be
enclosed and capable of maintaining and enduring
isolation, was independent of the city. Each of
these ecclesiastical institutions enjoyed a large
measure of freedom from the rule of the municipal
authorities. The city was also subdivided into
parishes, which, of course, were not enclosed by
walls. The parish boundaries, although less u T ell
defined than those of the areas above mentioned,
were none the less distinctly marked.

B. Streets

Streets, as we use the word to-day, were quite
few in number. They were usually called gates and
were mostly continuations of the great high-roads
that came into and through the city, after crossing
the wild country that covered most of northern
England, a desert in which a city was an oasis and a
sanctuary. In the lofty and graceful open lantern-
tower of All Saints, Pavement, a lamp was hung to
guide belated travellers to the safety and hospitality

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 w T ere 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 ove rhang in g upper
storeys of the buildings along each side. Goods in
the Middle Ages and right down to the nineteenth
century were carried in towms 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

STREETS

cattle market, were held in the streets,
two market-places were the principal public open
spaces, parts of a town that are given such importance
in modem town-planning schemes. Other open
spaces were the cloisters and gardens of the monas¬
teries, the courts of the Castle, the graveyards
of the churches, and private gardens. In spite of
these and the passage of a tidal river through
the city, it cannot be denied that the inhabitants
of our mediaeval city lived in rather dirty and badly
ventilated surroundings.

The River Ouse was crossed by one bridge, which
was of stone, with houses and shops of wood
built up from the body of the bridge. The
arches were small, and afford a striking contrast to
the later constructions, in which a wide central arch
replaced the two central small arches. The quays
were just below the bridge. At one end of Ouse
Bridge was St. William’s Chapel, a beautiful little
church, 1 as we know from the fragments of it that
remain. Adjoining the chapel was the sheriffs’
court; on the next storey was the Exchequer
court; then there was the common prison called
the Kidcote, while above these were other prisons
which continued round the back of the chapel.
Next to the prisons were the Council Chamber and
Muniment Room. Opposite the chapel were the
court-house, called the Tollbooth, 2 the Debtors’
Prison, and a Maison Dieu, that is, a kind of alms¬
house.

The present streets called Shambles (formerly
Mangergate), 3 Einkle Street, Jubbergate, Petergate,

1 A “ church ” that was in a parish, but was not the parish
church, was called a chapel. The parish church was the principal
and parent church of all within the parish.

8 Compare the Tollbooth, Edinburgh, and the Tolhouse,
Yarmouth, 8 €f. French manger .

12

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

and especially Shambles, little Shambles, and the
passages leading from them, help one to realise the
appearance of mediaeval streets and ways.

C. Buildings

Dwelling-houses ranged from big town residences
of noble or distinguished families, by way of the
beautifully decorated, costly houses of the rich
middle-class merchants, to the humble dwellings

of the poorest inhabitants. Every type of house
from the palace to the hovel was well represented.
The Archbishop’s Palace, consisting of hall, chapel,
quadrangle, m i nt , and gateway with prison, was
near the Minster. Beyond the fine thirteenth-
century chapel (now part of the Minster Library
buildings) hardly a trace of this undoubtedly
splendid residence is left. The Percies had a great
mansion in Walmgate. ' In other parts were the
mansions of the Scropes and the Vavasours. It is,
however, the houses of the prosperous traders that
are the most interesting, for in them we see the
kind of house a man built from the results of
successful business. Most houses were of timber;
those of the more wealthy were of stone and timber,

BUILDINGS

IB

The use of half-timbering, when the face of a building
consisted of woodwork and plaster, made houses and
streets very picturesque. The woodwork was often
artistically carved. Each storey was made to
overhang the one below it, so that an umbrella, if
umbrellas had been in use then, would have been
almost a superfluity, if not a needless luxury, besides
being impossible to manipulate in the narrow streets
and ways of a mediaeval city. The upper storeys
of two houses facing each other across a street were
often very close. Usually there were no more than
three storeys. The roofs were very steep and
covered generally with tiles, but in the case of the
smaller dwellings with thatch. From a house-top
the view across the neighbourhood would be of a
huddled medley of red-tiled roofs, all broken up
with gables and tiny dormer windows ; there would
be no regularity, just a jumble of patches of red-tiled
roofing.

The present streets called Shambles, Pavement,
Petergate and Stonegate, contain excellent examples
of mediaeval domestic architecture.

Shops were distinguished by having the front
of the ground floor arranged as a show-room, ware-
l*buse, or business room which was open to the
street. The trader lived at his shop. In the case
of a butcher’s, for example, the front part of the
shutters that covered the unglazed window at night,
was let down in business hours so that it hung over
the footway. On it were exhibited the joints of
meat. Butchers 1 slaughter-houses were then, as
now, private premises and right in the heart of the
city.

The rooms in the houses were quite small, with
low ceilings. The small windows, whether they
were merely fitted with wooden shutters or glazed

14

A MEDIEVAL CITY

with many small panes kept together with strips
of lead, lighted the rooms but poorly. The closeness
of the houses made internal lighting still less effective.
The interior walls were of timbering and plaster,
often white- or colour-washed. 1 Panelling was used
occasionally. The ventilation and hygienic condi¬
tions generally were far from good, as may be
imagined from a consideration of the smallness of
the houses, the compactness of the city, particularly
the parts occupied by the people, and especially
of the primitive system of sanitation, which was
content to use the front street as a main sewer.
There were, of course, no drains; at most there
was a gutter along the middle of a street, or
at each side of the roadway. It was the traditional
practice to dump house and workshop refuse into
the streets. Some of it was carried along by rain¬
water, but generally it remained: in any case it
was noxious and dangerous. There was legislation
on the subject, for the evil was already notorious in
the fourteenth century. The first parliamentary
attempt to restrain people in towns generally from
thus corrupting and infecting the air is dated 1388.
The many visits of distinguished people and public
processions always conferred an incidental boon on
the city, for one of the essentials of preparation was
giving the main streets a good cleaning. There
is no wonder that plagues perpetually harassed the
people of mediaeval times and reduced the population
miserably. The plague never disappeared till towns
were largely rebuilt on a more commodious scale in
the next great building era, which began in 1666 in
London and in the early years of the eighteenth

1 Wall-paper, which still bears the influence of the hangings
that it replaced, came into general use early in the nineteenth
century,

BUILDINGS

15

century elsewhere. No advance was made in sani¬
tation till the Victorian Age, when town sanitation
was completely revolutionised and, for the first
time, efficiently organised.

The house fire was of wood and peat, though coal
was also used. For artificial lighting oil-lamps (wicks
in oil) and candles were used. A light was obtained
from flint and tinder, the latter being ignited by a
spark got from striking the flint with a piece of
metal.

Rooms were furnished with chairs, tables,
benches, chests, bedsteads, and, in some cases, tub¬
shaped baths. Carpets were to be found only in
the houses of the very wealthy. The floors of
ordinary houses, like those of churches, were covered
with rushes and straw, among which it was the
useful custom to scatter fragrant herbs. This
rough carpet was pressed by the clogs of working
people and the shoes of the fashionable. The spit
was a much used cooking utensil. Table-cloths,
knives, and spoons w 7 ere in general use, but not the
fork before the fifteenth century. At one time food
was manipulated by the fingers. York was advanced
in table manners, for it is known that a' fork was
used in the house of a citizen family here in 1443.
The richer members of the middle class owned a
large number of silver tankards, goblets, mazer-
bowls, salt-cellars and similar utensils and ornaments
of diver, for this was a common form in which they
held their wealth.

Beer, which was largely brewed at home, was
the general beverage, but French and other wines
were plentiful. The water supply came from wells,
the water being drawn up by bucket and windlass,
or from the river when the wells were low. The
drinking water of the twentieth-century city is

16

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

taken entirely from the River Ouse, but now the
water is carefully treated and purified before reaching
the consumer.

There were not many inns, as is shown in records
by the number of innholders, who formed a
trade company. There were also wine-dealers.
Typical inn-signs were The Bull in Coney Street,
and The Dragon. There is no reason to believe that
in this century there was a really large amount of
drinking and drunkenness, such as there was in the
eighteenth century. An ordinance of the Marshals
of 1409—“ No man of the craft shall go to inns but
if he is sent after, under pain of 4d.”—may be quoted.

The houses of the wealthy and the great lords
were, of course, the better furnished. They had
walls adorned with tapestries and hung with arras
or hangings; occasionally their walls were panelled.
Their furniture was rich, well constructed, and
carved by skilled craftsmen. Their mansions were
large, for they had to house, beside the owner’s
family and personal household, retainers and depen¬
dents attached to his service in diverse capacities.

Civic Buildings consisted chiefly of the halls
connected with the trade guilds. The rulers of
the city and of the guilds were often the same men,
in any case usually men of the same set. These
secular buildings were really distinguished in appear¬
ance, but not monumental. They reflected some¬
thing of the wealth that accrued from trade. They
were of good size and proportions, built to be
worthy of the practical use for which they were
intended. The lower stages were of stone, the
upper for the most part of wood and plaster (half-
timbering). The structural framework was com¬
posed of stout beams and posts of timber. The
timber roofs were covered with tiles. Examples may

BUILDINGS

17

be seen in the Merchants’ Hall, Fossgate, and St.
Anthony’s Hall in Peaseholm Green. The wooden
joof of the Guild Hall, which was the Common Hall,
erected in the fifteenth century, is supported by
wooden columns. The walls of this hall and the
entire basement are of stone.

Of Davy Hall, the King’s administrative offices
and prison for the Royal Forest of Galtres, not a
trace remains to show the kind of buildings they were.

The Fortifications consisted of the Castle and
the city Walls with their gateways. The massive
stone Keep of the Castle was on a high artificial
mound at the city end of the enclosed area occupied
by the Castle. Around this mound there was a
moat, or deep, broad ditch filled with water. The
Keep, which is in plan like a quatrefoil, consisted of
two storeys. Within, near the entrance, there is a
well, the memory of which is for ever stained by the
unhappy part it played in one of the most bitter
persecutions of the Jews. Beyond the Keep there
were inner and outer wards, official buildings in¬
cluding the King’s great hall, the Royal Mint, and
barracks for the King’s soldiers. The entire Castle,
which was the residence of the royal governor, and
a military depot, was surrounded by walls, outside
which were moats, or the river, or swamps, according
to the position of each side. These moats, or
defensive ditches, were crossed by drawbridges.
To enter a fortified place in the Middle Ages one had
to pass a barbican {i.e. an outwork consisting of a
fortified wall along each side of the one way); a draw¬
bridge across the moat; a portcullis'or gate of
stoutly inter-crossing timbers (set horizontally and
vertically with only a small space between any two
beams, giving the whole gate the appearance of a
large number of small square holes, each surrounded

18

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

by solid wood) that could be lowered or raised at
will in grooves at the sides of the entrance opening.
The ends of the vertical posts at the bottom formed
a row of spikes which were shod with iron. The
points of these spikes entered the ground when
the portcullis w?as lowered. Beyond, there were the
wooden gates of the inner opening.

The city Walls, of which the present remains
date from the reign of Edward III., were broad,
crenellated walls of limestone, on a high mound
which was protected without by a parallel deep
moat. At the north, east, south, and west corners
there were massive bastions, and between these,
at short intervals, smaller towers. Besides being
crenellated the raised front of the wall itself was
often pierced with slits shaped for the use of long or
cross-bows. The bowmen were very well protected
by these skilful arrangements. Some of these slits,
shaped like crosses, were of exquisite design
architecturally.

The continuity of these mural fortifications was
broken only where swamps and the rivers made them
unnecessary and where roads passed through them.
The four principal entrances along the main high¬
roads were defended by the four Bars, or fortified
gateways. These, with their Barbicans, three of
which were so needlessly and callously destroyed
in the last century, were magnificent examples of
noble permanent military architecture. The outer
facade of Monk Bar to-day, spoiled as it is, expresses
a noble strength. There was formerly only the
single way, both for ingress and egress. 1 The Bar
was supported on each side by the mound and wall,

1 The view to-day from Petergate towards Bootham Bar
gives a good impression of a narrow main street, with gabled
houses, leading to the single fortified opening provided by the Bar,

BUILDINGS

19

which latter led right into the Bar and so to the
corresponding wall on the other side. Each of these
entrances to the city was protected by barbican,
portcullis, and gate. Each evening the Bars were
closed and the city shut in for the night. Defenders
used a Bar as a watch-tower or a fort. They could
walk along the high crenellated walls of the Barbican
and shoot thence, and stop the way by lowering the
portcullis. 1

Near the Castle there were the Castle mills,
where the machinery was driven by water-power.

Outside the walls there were strays, or common
lands. Some of the land immediately around the
city was cultivated or used as pasture. There were,
besides dwellings, several churches and hospitals,
just outside the city. Beyond this suburban area was
the forest.

The most notable of the Religious Buildings is
' the Minster, which w r as practically completed in the
fifteenth century, -when the work of erecting the
three towers was finished. The architectural splen¬
dour of this mighty' church must have appealed very
strongly to the people of the fifteenth century, for
did they not see the great work that had gone on for
centuries at last brought to this glorious conclusion ?
It rose up in the midst of the city, always visible
from near and far. The inside was even more
magnificent than the exterior. The fittings and
furniture were of the richest. The light mellow tone
of the white stonework was enhanced by the fleeting
visions of colour that spread across from the sunlit
stained-glass windows, which still, in spite of time
and restoration, add enormously to the beauty of
the interior.

1 The winch and portcullis are still in existence in Monk Bar,
and in working order.

20

A MEDIEVAL CITY

The Minster stood within its Close, one of the
four gateways of which, College Street Arch, remains.
This part of the city around the Minster was
enclosed because it was under the jurisdiction of the
liberty of St. Peter.

Originally founded in 627 by Edwin, King of
Northumbria, the Minster had been rebuilt and
enlarged from time to time. It received its final and
present form in the fifteenth century. At one
time the Nave was rebuilt: at the same time there
was built, near but separate from the main building,

BUILDINGS

21

the Chapter House, a magnificent octagonal parlia¬
ment house of one immense chamber : later the
Chapter House was connected with the main building
by the Vestibule. Then the Choir was replaced by
a larger and finer building in the then latest archi¬
tectural fashion. The new choir contained the east
window, which in the eyes of contemporaries was
wonderful and unrivalled for its size and painted
glass. It occupies nearly all the central space of
the east wall from a few feet above the ground
to almost the apex of the gable. Gothic archi¬
tecture was so marvellously adaptable that all these
parts, built at widely different times, at various
and strongly-contrasted stages of the development
of this English mediaeval architecture, together
make a single building that appears to possess the
most felicitous unity of general design and a per¬
fectly wonderful diversity of sectional design, for
every part is in complete sympathy with the scheme
as a whole.

To the east of the Central Tower is the Choir,
which was kept exclusively for the services ; to the
west, the Nave, the popular part. The entrance to
the Choir from the west is made through the stone
screen of Kings, which, with the lofty organ which
rests on it, prevents people in the Nave from getting
anything more than a glimpse of what is taking place
in the Choir. Over the western ends of the Nave
aisles are the twin west towers, which contain the
bells. The high altar and reredos stood in the middle
of the Choir between the two choir transepts, the
huge windows of which present in picture the life
stories of St. Cuthbert and St. William respectively.
The Eady Chapel, the part of the choir to the east
of the reredos, was very important in pre-Reforma-
tion days when the cult of the Virgin was very

c

22

A MEDIEVAL CITY

popular. To the north and south of the. Central
Tower are the Transepts. From the North Transept
the Vestibule leads to the Chapter House. The
church is, therefore, of the shape of a cross (the
centre of which is marked by the Central Tower)
with an octagonal building standing near and
connected with the northern arm.

The furniture was of wood and elaborately
carved. In the Choir were the fixed stalls with
towering canopies, and other seats, which were
ranged along the north and south sides and at the
west end. Chapels were marked off by wooden
screens, often of elaborate tracery.

The cost of erecting this huge and splendid
church must have been enormous. The Minster
contained the shrine of St. William of York,
which, like those of St. Cuthbert at Durham and
St. Thomas at Canterbury of European fame,
attracted streams of pilgrims, whose donations
helped the funds of erection and maintenance. This
was an established means of raising funds for
church purposes. There was, also, the money from
penances and indulgences. The Archbishops were
keen!}' interested in their cathedral church. Citizens
gave and bequeathed sums of money to the Minster
funds.. In addition, the Minster authorities received
gifts from wealthy nobles of the north of England.
The house of Vavasour, for instance, supplied
stone; that of Percy gave wood to be used in
building the great metropolitical church. If the
money cost was enormous, the completed building,
for design, engineering, and decorative work—in
stone, wood, cloth, stained glass—was far beyond
monetary value.

The Nave, the part open to the public, was used
for processions; some started from the great w'est

BUILDINGS

23

door, entrance through which was a rare privilege
granted only to the highest. The Choir was the
scene of the daily services of the seven offices of the
day. All around, in the aisles and transepts, were
altars in side-chapels, chantry-chapels, 1 where
throughout the early part of the day priests were
saying masses for the souls of the departed. There
were thirty chantries in the Minster.

The Minster has from its foundation been a
cathedral. The Chapter of canons with the Dean at
their head has alwa} T s been its Governing Body. As
a church it was served by prebendaries or canons
who had definite periods of duty annually, and two
residential bodies of priests, of whom some, the
chantry priests, lived at St. William’s College. This
College was erected shortly after the middle of the
fifteenth century: on the site there had been
Salton House, the prebendal residence of the Prior
of Hexham, who was canon of Salton. This
picturesque building of stone, wood, half-timber
work, and tiled roofs is a little to the east of the
Minster. It consists of a series of rooms ranged
round a central courtyard. It is of much historical
interest, and since it was restored recently to be
the home of the Convocation of the Northern
Province, it has returned to the service of the
church. The minor-canons, or vicars-choral, who
were employed by the canons as their deputies,
also lived in community. They had their' hall,

1 The Leschman Chantry Chapel in Hexham Abbey is a
typical example in excellent preservation. A small erection of
stone and wood, it stands between two of the piers of the north
Choir arcade. In small compass there are a stone altar with
five crosses, an aumbry beneath the altar, and the tomb with re¬
cumbent effigy of the founder. A priest would have just sufficient
room to move about in the performance of his service. Part of
Archbishop Bowet’s tomb in York Minster was a chantry chapel.

24

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

chapel, and other buildings in an enclosed part
called the Bedern not far from the Minster.

As a counterpart to the Minster, in appearance
as in use, was the great, rich Benedictine Abbey
of St. Mary, of ro\ r al foundation. With a mitred
abbot who sat among the lords spiritual in Parlia¬
ment, St. Mar>^s was perhaps the most important
of the northern monasteries. The buildings were
proportionally large and fine. The church, dating
mostly from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
was particularly long and had a tall spire. It was
only a little inferior to the Minster in magnificence.
On the south side were the Cloisters, the open-air
work-place and recreation place of the monks, while
beyond were the conventual buildings—such as the
calefactory or warming-house, the dormitories, and
the refectory or room where meals were taken. The
cloisters were square in plan and consisted of a
central grass plot, along the sides of which there
was a continuous covered walk with unglazed
windows facing the central open space. Benedictine
abbeys usually conformed to a common scheme as
regards the planning of the church and the con¬
ventual buildings. The cloisters were only one of
the courts or open squares, which separated groups
of conventual buildings. Further, there were gardens
and orchards. Nearer the river there was the
Hospitium, or guest-house, where visitors were
lodged. The abbey was within its own walls, and on
one side its grounds extended to the river. The
gateway, comprising gate, lodge, and chapel, was
on the north side.

Near the Castle there was an extensive Franciscan
Friary. On the other side of the river there was
the priory of the Holy Trinity, the home of an alien
Benedictine order. A Carmelite Friary in Hungate,

BUILDINGS

25

opposite the Castle, seems, from the few odd frag¬
ments of stone that remain, to have had fine build¬
ings. The Augustinian Friary was between Lendal
and the river. The Dominican house, which was
burnt down in 1455, was on the site of the old
railway station.

The only nunnery in the city was the Benedictine
Priory of St. Clement. There were sisterhoods in
St. Leonard’s and other hospitals. It should,
however, be noted there were many nunneries in
the districts round York.

Some of the religious institutions were called
Hospitals. The care of the sick was only one of the
functions of this type of religious house. Such was
the large and famous St. Leonard’s Hospital, a royal
institution that was not under the control of a
bishop. The beautiful ruins of St. Leonard’s, which
adjoined St. Maw’s Abbe}’, prove how r well this
hospital had been built. These hospitals, of which
there were fifteen in York, were in close touch with
the people. While St. Mary’s, for instance, was
one of the great abbeys, where the monks, by the time
when the fifteenth century was advanced, were living
luxuriously, easily, and generally unproductively,
the religious of the hospitals and lesser houses, were
still engaged in feeding the poor, tending the sick,
and educating the children of the people.

Each of these religious institutions, whether
monastery or hospital, was within its own grounds,
bounded by its own walls. Altogether they occupied
a large part of the total area of the mediaeval city
which their buildings adorned, and of which they
rvere so characteristic a feature : St. Mary’s Abbey,
which with its buildings and grounds covered a
large area, was actually outside the city proper, but
it was immediately adjoining it. There were nearly

26

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

sixty monasteries, priories, hospitals, maisons-dieu,
and chapels. The maisons-dieu, of which there were
sixteen, were smaller hospitals. They combined
generally the duties of almshouse and chantry.

Parish Churches, which were the centres of the
religious life of the laity, were everywhere. In the
fifteenth century there were forty-five churches and
ten chapels, so that there was always a place in
church for every citizen.

A church was always in use. Besides the regular
public services which took place frequently during
the day, and the special services for festivals, there
were services in chantries. Both the high altar in
the chancel and altars in other parts of a church
■were used. Several altars were necessary because
the number of masses, for the celebration of which
money was liberally bequeathed, was very large.
The parish church was used for other than purely
religious purposes. It w T as the central meeting-
place of the parish, and might be described as the
seat of parochial government. Meetings were held
in the Nave. Parts of the church were used as
schools. The parish church was also the depot for
the equipment of those members who became
soldiers. Moreover, fire-buckets (generally of leather)
were often kept in the church, since, being of stone,
it was perhaps the safest building in the parish.
There were also long poles with hooks at the end
used to pull thatch away from burning houses.

Most, if not all, of these churches were fine
specimens of the architecture of the Middle Ages,
the so-called Gothic architecture, which is charac¬
terised by pointed arches, ribbed vaulting, and
the constant use of the buttress. These churches
were, in contrast to the present condition of most
of those that remain, complete with chancel, nave

BUILDINGS

27

and aisles, towers or spires, bells, stained-glass
windows, and furniture, many of them being particu¬
larly rich in one or more of these features. The
painted windows 1 are especially interesting, for
they show the standard of this branch of fifteenth-
century art and are valuable historical documents.
The rich, mellow tones of colour should be noted,
also the incidental pictures of mediaeval dress and
furniture. It is interesting to compare the fifteenth
century work with that done, for instance, by the v
William Morris firm to the designs of Burne-Jones
(1833-1898), at a time wiien the revived art, with
other forms of decoration, w T as enjoying a period of
great success. In the fifteenth century the church
was flourishing materially, at least, and money and
gifts were freely given.

The offices and services in churches were recited
and sung. Organs were used, but were not very
large and were capable of being carried about:
although working on similar principles to the
modem organ they lacked its size, power, and
varied capacity. At the Minster there were several
organs, for instance “ the great organs,” “ the
organs in the Choir,” “ the organs at the Altar
B. V. M.”

The Chancel was the most sacred part of the
church, for there was the principal or high altar.
In the Chancel were the stalls or seats of the clergy
and officials. The actual seats could be turned up
when the occupants wished to stand. Standing for
long periods was made less irksome in. that the
underside of each seat was made with a projecting
ledge, which gave some support. It is thoroughly

1 Besides the exceptional display of fifteenth-century glass
in the Minster, notable examples occur in St. Martin's, Coney
Street, All Saints', North Street, and Holy Trinity, Good-
ramgate.

28 A MEDLEYAL CITY

characteristic of the age that this very human,
device should have existed, and, secondly, that
these ledges were carved and ornamented. These
misericords, as they are called, were usually
curiously, even grotesquely carved. Some of these
carvings were founded on natural objects, some were
grotesque heads, others represented subjects with
men and animals. There were pews for the nobility,
but, apart from the few old and weak people who
used the rough bench or two in the body of the
church, or the stone bench that ran along the walls,
the general public stood during the services.

Wealthy parishioners left money to the parochial
clergy and for the fabric of the church: they
generally wished to be buried at some particular
place within their parish church. Such distinguished
men as Nicholas Blackburn, merchant of York,
were commemorated at times in their parish churches
by means of stained-glass window’s. The portraits
of Nicholas and his son and their waves appear
in the east window of All Saints’, North Street;
his arms also are to be seen in this window.

D. York as a Port

The Ouse was tidal and navigable right up to
York. Trade, especially in woollen goods, was
carried on in the fifteenth century by river and sea
directly between York and ports on the west coasts
of the continent and, especially, Baltic ports. On
arriving at York the boats stopped at the quays,
adjacent to which were warehouses, just below Ouse
Bridge.

The sea-going boats were not large. They were
usually one-masted sailing ships, built of wood;

THE PORT OF YORK 29

they had high prows and sterns, with a capacious
hold between. Some of them were built in York.

Their trade was such that some of the York
merchants, for example the wealthy Howme family,
had establishments in foreign ports. The Howmes
had property in Calais.

The regulation of the waterwa3 T S in and near the
citv was vested in the Corporation. Matters per¬
taining to navigation and shipping were adjudged
by an Admiralty Court under the King’s Admiral,
whose j urisdiction extended from the Thames to the
northern ports.

CHAPTER IV

XJFB

A. Civic Life

a T)ARISIi government formed the unit in the
X government of the city. Each parish was
a self-governing community, electing its own officers
with the exception of its rector, making its own
bye-laws, and, to meet expenses, levying and
collecting its own rates. Its constables served as
policemen, attended the Sessions, and acted as the
lire brigade. They looked after the parish-trained
soldiers, acted as recruiters, and had the care of the
parish armour, which was kept in a chest in the
church. They distributed money among lame
soldiers, gathered trophy money, relieved cripples
and passengers, but unfeelingly conveyed beggars
and vagabonds to prison. The parish soldiers kept
watch and ward over the parish defences. The
parish stocks, in which offenders were placed, stood
near the churchyard stile. The constables were also
responsible for such lighting as the parish required,
and kept the parish lanthorn.

“ The officials looked after the parish poor, dis¬
pensing charity by gifts of bread and money.
The parish boundaries were perambulated every
Ascension Day\ Parish dinners were held on the
choosing of the churchwardens, the visitation of
the Archdeacon, etc. The parish officials invoked

30 '

CIVIC LIFE

81

the aid of the law when parochial rights were
infringed, especially by neighbours. The church
was the centre of parochial life and in it the business
of the parish was transacted.

“ Parishes were grouped as wards. The wards
chose city Councillors, and these elected their Aider-
men. The six wards formed the municipality over
which presided the Mayor. The Corporation exer¬
cised a general supervision over the whole of the
parishes of which there were forty-five.

“ Gradually the duties and powers of the various
parish officials have been transferred to the City
Council. The united parish soldiers became the
city trained bands. In 1900 the last remnant of
parochial officialdom passed into the power of the
Corporation when parish overseers ceased to exist,
and, for rating purposes, the City of York be¬
came one parish instead of the original forty-five
separately rated areas.’* 1

The Cathedral, i.e. the Liberty of St. Peter, and
the Royal Castle were outside municipal control.
The Archbishops also had their privileges. They
had once owned all the city on the right bank of
the Ouse. In the fifteenth century they still
retained many of their, privileges and possessions
in this quarter, as, for example, the right of holding
a fair here in what was formerly their shire. These
archiepiscopal rights have not all lapsed, for in
1807 the Archbishop of the time, successfully
asserting his legal rights, saved from demolition the
city walls on the west side of the river.

York was a royal borough, that is, the freemen
of the city had to pay rent to the king, from whom
it rvas farmed directly. It was not owned by any
knight or lord, that is, apart from the Archbishop’s
1 G. Benson: *! Parish of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York/*

32

A MEDIEVAL CITY

possessions, which belonged to the western section
of the city ; the city proper was almost entirety
on the opposite side of the river. The King retained
possession of certain properties, such as Galtres
Forest, lying in the valley stretching northwards
from York. He had a larder and a fish pond at
York ; also a court, offices, and a prison (Davy
Hall, of which the name alone remains) for the
administration of the forest. These town-properties
were, of course, entirety extra-parochial.

York received a long succession of royal charters.
Henry I. granted the city certain customs, laws
and liberties, and the right to have a merchant
guild. The possession of these rights was confirmed
by King John in the first year of his reign. In
1396 Richard II., at York, made the city a county
in itself. In consequence the office of bailiff was
replaced by that of sheriff.

The King’s official representative in the city
was called the sheriff, whose office in York has been
continuous down to the present da3 T . The sheriffs—
there were usually two—were responsible for the
maintenance of order, for the local soldiery, and
the collection of the royal taxes and dues. The
sheriff was a busy and important medieval official.

The Mayor was the real governor of the city.
He was a powerful official and literally ruler of the
city. In practice he was most often a wealthy and
important merchant; and, like the Aldermen,
belonged to the group of men who governed the
trade guilds as well as the municipality. Various
symbols were attached to his office. The chief
objects among the corporation regalia at the present
time are the sword, mace, and cap of maintenance.

There were three city councils, “ the twelve/'
“ the twenty-four/’ and “ the forty-eight,” as they

were called. There were the Aldermen and Council¬
lors—-the “ lords ” and ** commons ” of the municipal
parliament. The ordinary council-chamber was at
Ouse Bridge : the other -was the Common Hall, the
present Guildhall. Sometimes the whole community
of citizens met, when for the moment the govern¬
ment of the city became essentially and practically
democratic. This was only done on important
occasions to decide broad questions of policy, or
when numbers were needed to enforce a decision.
The commons really possessed no administrative
power. The form of civic government was supposed
to be representative, but as a matter of fact it was
not only not founded on popular election (a procedure
enforced in 1835 by the Municipal Reform Act), but
was kept exclusively in the hands of the wealthy
merchant and trading class, the middle class. Men
of this class became Aldermen. When a vacancy
occurred in the upper house of civic government,
they chose a man like themselves. The Mayor was
elected by the Aldermen, who naturally chose one
of themselves. In fact the government of the city
was in the hold of a “close self-elected Corporation.’’

The civic spirit developed a good deal during
the fifteenth century, no doubt in connection with
the simultaneous increase in the wealth and social
pretension of the rising merchant middle class. It
appeared in the greater respect bestowed on the
office of Mayor and the pomp and reverence attached
to his position. The “ right -worshipful ” the Mayor
and the Aldermen wore rich state robes edged with
fur. In addition, contemporary city records reflect
the new spirit in such expressions as “ the worshupful
cite,” “ the said full honourabill cite,” “ this full
nobill city.” This spirit, however, developed more
fully in the sixteenth century.

84

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

The Mayor held his court in the Common Hall,
where he heard pleas about apprentices and mysteries
(i.e. the rules of the crafts); offences against the
customs of the city ; breaches of the King’s peace.
It was his duty- to administer the statute merchant.
The Recorder was the official civic lawyer.

The governors of the city were intimately
connected with the control of trade, and the rule of
the pageants. These phases of city life overlapped
considerably and were interdependent. Weaving
was the principal trade. The Mayor and Aldermen
were the masters of the mysteries of the weavers.
Power to enforce the ordinances of the other mysteries
was granted by the Mayor and Corporation.

There were times when the King took the govern¬
ment into his own hands. This was done during
the rebellion of the Percies, a northern family skilled
and experienced in rebelling. Henry IV. withdrew
the right of government from the city in 1405, but
he restored it in 1406 after the execution of Arch¬
bishop Scrope, who had been so popular with the
people of York.

Of mediaeval punishments the most obvious
were the stocks, a contemporary picture of which is
to be seen in one of the stained-glass windows o*
All Saints’, North Street. Examples of stocks
survive in the churchyards of Holy Trinity, Mickle-
gate, mid St. Lawrence’s. They were near the
entrance to the churchyard and commanded full
public attention. The petty offender, condemned
to spend so many hours in the public gaze and
subject to whatever treatment the public chose to
inflict on him, sat on the ground or on a low seat,
while his feet were secured at the ankles by two
vertical boards. The upper was raised for the
insertion of the ankles in the specially cut-out

CIVIC LIFE 85

half-round holes in each board, so that when the
boards were touching and in the same vertical plane,
the ankles were completely surrounded by wood.

To its political importance York owed the ghastly
exhibition of heads and odd quarters of traitors
and others who had gained punishment of national
importance, which usually consisted of “ hanging,
drawing and quartering/' when the quarters and
the head were sent to London and the principal
towns of the kingdom to be exhibited on gateways,
towers, and bridges. This practice served to provide
the public with convincing proof that a traitor was
actually dead, and was very necessary in an age
when Rumour, “ stuffing the ears of men with false
reports ” held sway over “ the blunt monster with
uncounted heads, the still discordant wavering
multitude." Micldegate Bar was so used. In
Shakespeare's Henry VI. Queen Margaret makes,
with reference to the Duke of York, this bitter
play of words :—

“ Ofi with, his head and set it on York gates;

So York may overlook the town of York.”

One very interesting practice in connection with
the mediseval system of law and policing was the
use of the right of sanctuary. The monasteries,
the Minster, and all churches had this right of
giving a sacrosanct safety to criminals and others
flying from their pursuers, whether officers of the
law or the general mob, whose right, be it noted,
it was to join in the chase after offenders (the “ hue
and cry ”) and help to arrest them. Provided the
pursued reached the prescribed area, which, in some
cases, as at the nationally famous sanctuary of St.
John of Beverley, prevailed for some distance from
the church itself, he was safe from his pursuers.
Hexham Abbey and Beverley Minster still exhibit

36

A MEDIEVAL CITY

their sanctuary chairs or frith-stools. In the north
door of Durham Cathedral there is an ancient,
massive knocker, the rapper, of the form of a ring,
being held in the mouth of a grotesque head. The
frith-stool, to which the seeker went at once, stood
near the high altar at which he made his declarations
on oath. His case was carefully investigated and
often sanctuary-seekers were allowed to exile them¬
selves from the kingdom. The coroner was the
public officer of inquiry. The Church took every
care that the crime of breaking the sanctuary so
granted was regarded not at all lightly. The right
of sanctuary, after being changed to apply to certain
towns only—among them York—continued till it
was ended by law in the reign of James I.

Condemned heretics were burnt 1 at Tyburn, the
site of local executions, some way from Micklegate
Bar along the main south road.

B. Parliamentary and National Life

According to the general principle, the King was
the ultimate and absolute owner and ruler of the
land and people. The rights, liberties, customs, and
powers possessed by individuals and corporate
bodies were specified parts of the royal power which
the King had granted on some consideration or other.
Thus, knights, archbishops, and nobles received lands
and rights in return for the provision, when required,
of military service by themselves and a certain force
of their retainers, except that no personal military
service was required from the archbishop from the

1 De heretico comburendo, 1401. In 1539 Valentine Freez,
a freeman, and his wife, were burnt at the stake on Knavesmire
for heresy. Frederick Freez, Valentine's father, was a book-
printer and a freeman (1497).

NATIONAL LIFE

37

very nature of his calling. The monasteries and
other Church institutions had many possessions and
rights. The Church, which was established in the
realm before Parliament, was a very great owner of
land. The authorities of cities, with their trade-
guilds, received the right of trading, or holding
markets, and of levying tolls or municipal taxes.
They received also the right of making their own

KNIGHTS DOING PENANCE AT A SHRINE.

From a Fifteenth-Centuvy Manuscript .

local laws or bye-laws. These authorities, whether
individuals or corporate bodies, to whom rights and
liberties were granted, had their own officers and
laws controlling their liberties. Besides the King's
peace, there were, therefore, the jurisdictions of
these various rights granted from the supreme royal
authority.

From York there went to the national Parliament
the lord Archbishop of York, the lord Abbot of
St. Mary's Abbey, those nobles who resided in the
city and were Lords Temporal, and the two repre¬
sentatives of the commonalty of the city. The body
of Lords Spiritual was of great importance in the

D

38

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

Middle Ages. The Convocation of the lords of the
Church had itself a share in the governing of the
nation as well as of the Church, its own particular
sphere. The Church w r as one of the most powerful
and richest factors in national affairs. The clear
division of the Parliament of the Middle Ages into
three groups reflects the sharp divisions that there
were between the three great classes of the nation—
the nobles, the clergy, the people.

In the fifteenth century, as in other centuries,
York was frequently visited by the King. Prom
time to time, as when the King and Court proceeded
north during the wars with Scotland, Parliament
was moved to York, where it was held in the Chapter
House of the Minster. Six of the seven windows of
the Chapter House contain their original stained
glass, in which appear shields of King Edward I.
and members of the Court. The Chapter House
was used as a Parliament house during the
reigns of the first three Edwards. The King, in
mediaeval times, was actual commander-in-chief,
and it suited him well for Parliament to meet in the
political capital of the north, so that he could continue
the civil administration while conducting warfare
in the north.

Henry IV. was in York on several occasions,
chiefly because of rebellions. The house of Percy,
which engaged frequently in revolt and faction, led
the rebellion of 1403 in which Henry Percy, called
Hotspur, was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury.
Harry Hotspur, whom Shakespeare made in accord¬
ance with tradition the fiery and valorous counter¬
part of Prince Hal, Henry IV.'s heir and Falstaff's
companion, was buried in the Minster. When
Archbishop Scrope headed a revolt, also not un¬
connected with the Percies, from York and was

NATIONAL LIFE

39

arrested, Henry IV. hastened to York, and the
popular archbishop was executed forthwith, a royal
and sacrilegious deed that caused intense indignation
especially among the people of York, who for some
months lost the right of local government as a result
of this affair.

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), a long
internecine feud between kings, lords, and landed
gentry, affected the towns but little. The baronage
suffered heavily, the middle class lightly. No town
ever stood a siege, while Towton was the only battle
in which the common soldiers had heavy losses.
Warwick made it a practice to spare the commoners,
whereby he conciliated the people. Under Yorkist
rule, after the decisive battle of Towton (1461)
England can be described as not unprosperous. One
very notable feature was the immense amount of
building that was done, and that not so much of
castles, as of country houses, churches, and cathe¬
drals, so many of which splendidly adorn the land
to-day. The only people seriously affected by the
Wars of the Roses were the main participants.
Compared with modern warfare, which is unabated
scientific extermination, mediaeval warfare was often
of the nature of a mild adventure. The size of the
opposing forces was very small even compared with
the scanty population. The chief weapons were
lances, swords, long-bows, and cross-bows, but
protective armour was worn. The fighting was
generally sporadic and desultory and the casualties
were .very few.

It was at York that Henry VI. awaited the news
of the result of the battle of Towton. Edward IV.
entered York as victor after the battle. York, like
other cities at the time, took care to maintain the
good graces of both sets of combatants. Although

40

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

through the Wars of the Roses national parliamentary
government ultimately broke down and gave way
to the strong personal kingship of Henry VII.,
the towns, which actually suffered little, increased
their local powers. Civic government developed
much and trade flourished during the century.

York had a good friend in Richard, Duke of
Gloucester. The city was very loyal to him and
helped him by raising troops in his support. When
he visited York he was received with
festivity and magnificence. The Mayor and Corpora¬
tion in their correspondence with him addressed him
as “ our full tender and especial good lord.” They
had to thank him “ for his great labour now late
made unto ye king’s good grace for the confirmation
of the liberties of this city.” But for his death at
Bosworth, York would have benefited greatly by his
munificence.

Henry VII. was in York in 1487. After Bosworth
(1485) the city had assured him of its loyalty. The
marriage of Henry of Richmond, who represented
the House of Lancaster, and Elizabeth, daughter of
Edward IV. Duke of York, fittingly followed the
conclusion of the Wars of the Roses. With
Henry VII.’s reign a new era began in KngligVi
history.

Throughout the century the city could not avoid
contact with rival parties and powers. In spite,
however, of rebellions and the Wars of the Roses*
the capital of the north managed generally to steer
a safe course through many storms.

Other links with national affairs were the periodic
visits of the King’s judges who travelled on circuit
over the country, stopping at important centres to
hold assize there. Their duties consisted not only
in settling matters of litigation, but also in reviewing

business life

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 harder 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 Fane, and Colliergate
would suggest that men in the same trade had their
premises in the same quarter, possibly in the same
street.

The T fogb'sh 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 class 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 class, appeared
especially in their attitude towards national taxation
and in that towards trade organisations. With
regard to taxation the towns persistently avoided the

42

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

assessment of individual traders, who did not wish
to disclose the amount of their wealth, b}’ agreeing
that the whole town should pay to the Exchequer
a sum to be raised by the Mayor and Corporation.
The middle class achieved its aims politically by
transformation from within. Instead of making a
direct assertive attack, these master-traders usually
so developed their own interests within the estab¬
lished institutions (such as the guilds) that they
ultimately gained their object quietly and shrewdly.
This class established itself against the King and the
nobles on the one hand, and during the century in
effective fashion against the workers on the other.;
This appears in the more definite distinctions of class
among the citizens that arose. The masters had
got the control of the guilds into their own power.
While maintaining the original outward appearance
of the guilds as societies of men affected by the same
interests in daily life, the employers had actually
become a powerful vested class that ruled both city
and guild life. In the fifteenth century the workmen
were founding fraternities of their own.

Memory of the Jews, the money-dealers of other
times, survived if only from'the harrowing stories
of the various persecutions that had taken place
all over England, and not least in York. The Jews
had been expelled from the country by Edward I.,
with the encouragement of the Church, in 1290,
partly for economic, partly for religious reasons.
Their supplanters, the Italian bankers, whom
Edward favoured, soon acquired from their trading
an unpopularity equal to that of the Jews as traders.
The rise of the middle class had coincided with the
release of money in coin from the hoards of the
Jews, and from the coffers of the Knights Templars,
whose order was abolished in 1312.

BUSINESS LIFE

43

The merchant and trading class, apart from the
nobility and the Church, formed the bulk of the
people of the nation. They were the solid part of
the nation, that paid taxes, that supplied clerks,
monks, and priests, that liberally supported the
Church, that kept the nation progressive and solvent
by commercial undertakings.

The professions, as we use the term to-day,
had not as yet attained sufficient importance for
them to form a distinct class division. There were a
few capable physicians, but generally the practice
of medicine was shared by the Church and the
barber-surgeons. Priests and officers of the Church
had the privilege peculiar to the Church by w-hich
even a poor but intellectually capable man could
rise to high office and become the social equal of
nobles. Architecture was practised by master-
masons under the patronage of leading ecclesiastics
and nobles. Teaching was nearly all the work of the
Church. The lawyers, however, were already to be
distinguished from those who gained profit by deal¬
ing in goods, for they made profit from transactions
on paper, from managing the interests of others,
from trading in their own acute mental powers.

The wool trade was by far the most extensive
and flourishing trade of England in the four¬
teenth and fifteenth centuries. This was the trade
that made England great commercially. Wool was
England’s raw material and the source of most of
her wealth. The numerous monasteries had huge
sheep-farms. Edward III. had encouraged foreign
clothworkers to settle in England (in York, as in
other places). The first York craftsmen to be
incorporated were the weavers, who received a
charter from Henry II., in return for which they paid
a tax to the King for the customs and liberties he

44

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

granted them. The weavers were the largest and
wealthiest body of traders.

Guilds had developed from societies of masters
and men engaged in the same trade, to the trade-
guilds, which in the fourteenth century were
trade corporations, the lower ranks of members
being the workers, the higher ranks, including the
office-holders, the richer merchants, the capitalist
employers. The ruling committees of the trade-
guilds made regulations and generally governed
their particular trades. Despite the power of the
guilds the municipal authority maintained its
supremacy in civic government because it enforced
the ordinances of the trades. Moreover, disputes
between the guilds themselves gave the city
authority opportunities of increasing its power, of
which it availed itself.

The system of serfdom, by which serfs were
bound to a particular domain and owned by their
overlord, had not yet ceased. Nearly all the workmen
of York, however, were freemen, i.e. they had full
and complete citizenship. The members of the
councils of aldermen and councillors, the mayors
and city officials, the members of the trade-guilds,
were all freemen.

In the fifteenth century the wealthy and im¬
portant employers and traders governed the guilds.
They were in the position and bad the power to
regulate the conduct in every way of their own
trades. Thus, rules were laid down as to the terms
of admission of men to the practice of a trade ; the
government of the guild and the meetings of the
members and ruling committees; the moral
standard of the members in their work and traf¬
ficking ; the payments of masters to workers; the
prices of goods to be sold to the public or other

BUSINESS LIFE

45

traders; the rates of fines and the amount of
confiscations inflicted on those who broke the rules
of their guild; the terms on which strangers,
English and foreign, were to be allowed to pursue
their trade in the city; whether Sunday trading
was to be permitted or not; the duties of the
searchers; everything incident to the share of the
guild in the city’s production of pageant plays.

The question of the terms of the residence and
trading of strangers received constant consideration.
The city had, in many respects, complete local
autonomy and rules were made with regard to
strangers who came to carry on their trades in
the city. From 1459 aliens had, by municipal
law, to live in one place only, at the sign of the
Bull in Coney Street, unless they received special
permission from the Mayor to reside elsewhere.
The guilds were ruled by masters and wardens.
They had their various officials. The searchers
were officers appointed to observe that the rules
of the trade were being carried out properly.
They took care that only authorised members
pursued the trade of the guild of which they were
the officers. They vigilantly watched the conduct
of the members, and it was their duty to take action
in case of infringement of the rules and to bring
offenders before the Mayor in his court.

The wealthy trading class all over the country
did great and lasting work in founding grammar
schools and building or rebuilding cathedrals and
churches or parts of them. There was a social side
to the guilds. This appeared in the public pro¬
cessions and the performances of plays, the
morality and mystery plays of mediseval England.
There was also a strong religious side to the guilds.
The processions and plays were fundamentally

46

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

religious. The Church's festivals were recognised
as holidays. Much money was given and be¬
queathed for the foundation of chantries, which
with their priests have their place also in the
educational life of the city.

The merchants lived well. They were rich from
trade, and through the corporate guilds governed
their own trades both legislatively and executively ;
the highest offices in civic life were theirs; they
lived in houses as splendid as they cared to have
them; they furnished their homes with quantities
of silver plate, both for use and for ornament, for
this was the most suitable outlet for superfluous
wealth in days when modem facilities for investment
did not exist; they wore clothes of fine material,
richly trimmed ; they were honoured citizens ; the}’
were earnest in religion and their benevolence to the
Church is very remarkable. They were forming a
lesser aristocracy now that they were becoming
owners of agricultural land as well as town property.
They had the benefits of wealth and comfort, while
they were shrewd enough to avoid the penalties of
advertised riches. A typical instance of a successful
merchant who rose to high positions .was that of
Sir Richard Yorke, who was Mayor of the staple of
Calais and Lord Mayor of York in 1469 and 1482,
and member of Parliament. A window in St. John's
Church, Micklegate, in commemoration of him is still
to be seen. A shield bearing his arms (azure, saltire
argent) appears in the glass ; another bears the arms
of the Merchants of the Wool staple of Calais. He
was knighted by Henry VII. when that king was in
York in 1487.

Masters took apprentices, who themselves gene¬
rally became masters in their turn. The conditions
of apprenticeship were ruled in detail by the guilds.

BUSINESS LIFE

47

When a workman became a skilled artisan he
was called a journeyman, 1 that is, a man who earned
a full day’s pay for his -work. The legal hours of
work were, from March to September, from 5 a.m.
to 7.30 p.m., with half an hour for breakfast, and
an hour and a half for dinner. Saturday was
universally a half-holiday. There were 44 working
weeks in a year and, consequently, a total of holidays
and non-working times of eight weeks. The burden
of the very long hours was increased by the great
physical exertion required from men who had to
do much that is now done with the help of machinery.
The strain was not always unrecognised, for the
Minster ■workmen were allowed a period of rest
during the working day.

Some of the men engaged in the construction of
the Minster were not York men. The men employed
there were by exception under ecclesiastical control.
They were not governed by any of the city trade
guilds. The master-mason was in charge of the
whole of the building operations.

A list of trades in the city will suggest the kinds
of business there were. Some of the names will go
far to explain some modern surnames.

Wool Trades :—

Mercers.

Tapiters and couchers (makers of tapestry,
hangings, carpets, and coverlets).

Fullers.

Cardmakers.

Littesters (dyers, listers).

Shermen (shearmen).

Sledmen.

Dyers.

Weavers of woollen.

* Cf. French journee.

48

A MEDIJEVAL CITY

Leather Trades :—

Barkers (tanners).

Curriers.

Building Trades :—

Carpenters, wrights and joiners.

Plasterers.

Tilers.

Ironmongers.

Painters.

Glaziers.

Food Trades :—

Spicers (grocers— Cf. French epicier).

Cooks and waterleaders.

Baxters (bakers).

Vintners and taverners.

Bouchers (butchers).

Pulters (poultry-dealers).

Wine-drawers (carters of wine).

Sauce-makers. 1

Outfitting Trades :—

Tailors.

Skinners (vestment makers).

Glovers.

Hosiers..

Hatmakers.

Capmakers.

Cordwainers (cobblers).

Saddlers.

Girdlers and nailers.

Spuriers and lorimers (makers of spurs, bits for
bridles, etc.).

1 Sauce was much used.- The people of the Middle Ages had
an especial liking for spices and highly-seasoned foods.

BUSINESS LIFE

49

Armour Trades :—

Armourers.

Smiths.

Bowers and flecchers (fletchers)—(makers of
bows and arrows. Cf. French fleche).

Household Trades :—

Coopers.

Pewterers and founders.

Chaundlers (makers of candles and wax images).
Potters.

Culters.

Bucklemakers, sheathers, bladesmiths.

Drapers.

Linenweavers.

Miscellaneous Trades :—

Goldsmiths.

Latoners (workers in the metal called latten).
Barber-surgeons (the mediaeval medical prac¬
titioners).

Parchemeners and bookbinders.

Scriveners.

Writers of texts.

Ostlers (inn-holders).

Shipwrights.

Fishers and mariners.

Artist craftsmen of York supplied most of the
churches of the north of England with their
beautiful vessels, furniture, and ornaments. In
the workshops of the city, the metropolis of the
north, there were worked and made embroidered
vestments of all kinds, engraved chalices and vessels
of silver and of gold, and carved work, including
statues and images in stone, wood, and wax. Bells
were cast with beautiful lettering. Brasses for

50 A MEDIAEVAL CITY

grave-slabs were made bearing finely designed
effigies.

Marketing, i.e. trading, was done mostly at the
frequent and regular markets and at the fairs. The
right to hold a market or a fair was among the
rights obtained by means of royal charters. While
markets were held once or several times a week or
every day, fairs took place more rarely and at some
of the most important and popular holiday seasons
of the year, like Whitsuntide. Fairs attracted a
much larger public than the markets.

In the city there were markets in different places
for different kinds of produce on certain days. For
instance, in the fifteenth century there was a market
of live-stock at Toft Green every Friday. The
public squares, called Thursday Market and Pave¬
ment, were used as market-places. Some markets
were held in the streets. Stalls were set up on
which to exhibit the wares. The ordinary food¬
stuffs and materials, just as in the open market held
at the present time in the long and broad Parliament
Street, formed of Thursday Market and Pavement
and the space formerly occupied by a compact mass
of old houses between the two originally distinct
squares, were the things sold and bought at the
mediaeval markets: such as butter, meat, fish,
linen, leather, com, poultry, herbs. Some, for
example butchers’ shops, kept open market, every
day. Craftsmen worked goods at the premises of
their merchant employers, which usually combined
the latters’ home and workshop; it was chiefly at
the markets and fairs that these goods were sold.

Markets and fairs were controlled by theauthority,
whether municipal or archiepiscopal, that possessed
the right of holding them. Again, particular care
was taken to ensure preference being obtained by

BUSINESS LIFE

51

the citizens over strangers. The Lammas fairs
were held under the authority of the Archbishops,
who assumed the rule of the city and suburbs for
the period of the fair. The sheriffs’ authority, in
consequence, was suspended for that period. The
Archbishop, meanwhile, took tolls, and all cases
that arose during the holding of the fair were
judged by a court set up by him.

Fairs combined both trading and entertainments,
for they were held on public holidays. They
fostered trade and served to provide a change from
the ordinary routine of life. It was perhaps at
fairs that mediaeval people were at their noisiest, for
these were occasions when they gave themselves up
unrestrainedly to merry-making, wild and clamorous.
Strolling players and the whole variety of mediaeval
entertainers set up their stands and booths, and
amused the dense surging crowds that thronged the
squares and streets.

York had a large overseas trade, especially
in wool and manufactured cloth. Some of its
merchants owned property abroad. Some went
abroad and encountered perils by sea and perils
from foreigners on the continent. York traded
with the Low Countries, w T here Veere (near Middle-
burg) and Dordrecht were ports that ships entered
to discharge cargoes loaded on the York quays.
The trade between York and the Baltic ports was
much greater than that done with them from any
other English port.

Foreign sailors were to be seen in the streets
of fifteenth-century York; foreign goods were
handled in the city. Wines were imported from
France, fine cloths from Flemish towns, silks, velvet,
and glass from Italy, while from the Baltic came
timber and fur. From the North sea came fish.

52

A MEDLEVAL CITY

much of which was brought to York from the coast
by pack-horse across the moors. The herring was
an important article of food.

Money was measured in marks, shillings, and
pence. Of the current coins those in gold were
called the angel, half-angel, the noble, half-noble,
and quarter-noble; in silver there were the groat,
half-groat, the penny, and half-penny. The local
branch of the royal Mint was housed within the
Castle. The building containing it w r as rebuilt in
accordance with an order of 1423. The coins from
this mint, which was at work during a large part of
the fifteenth century, bore distinctive marks to
show the place of minting. Silver coins bore the
inscription CIVITAS EBORACI. The archbishops
continued to use their privilege of coining money.

The following extracts, interesting for the
substance and the literary form, are taken from the
city records as published by the Surtees Society,
vols. 120, 125, “ The York Memorandum Book.”

From the ordinances of the Pewterers, 1416.

“ Ordinaciones pewderariorum.

“ Ceux sont les articles de lez pewderers de
Bounders, les queux les genz de mesme lartifice
dyceste citee Deverwyk ount agrees pur agarder et
ordeiner entre eux par deux ans passez, devant
Johan Moreton, maire.”

Others of the earlier ordinances are in Anglo-
French ; many are in Batin. Bater ordinances are
in English as in the case of those of the Carpenters,
1482, of which the following are the opening
paragraphs:—

“ In the honour of God, and for the weile of
this full honourabill cite of York, and of the

BUSINESS LIFE

S3

carpenters inhabit in the sa m e at the special in-
staunce and praier of” . . . (here follows a list
of names) . . . “ carpenters of this full nobill cite,
ar orde3 r ned the xxij tl day of Novembyr in the
xxij M yere of the reing of king Edward the iv. in
the secund tym of the mairalte of the ryght honora-
bill Richard York mair of the said cite, by the
authorite of theiholl counsell of the said full honourable
cite, for ewyr to be kept thez ordinaunces filluyg,

“ Eurst, for asmoch as here afore ther hath beyn
of old tym a broderhode had and usyd emong the
occupacion and craft above said, the wicb of long
continuaunce have usid, and as yit yerly usis to
fynd of thar propir costes a lyght of diwyrs torchis
in the fest of Corpus Christi day, or of the morn
aftir, in the honour and worship of God and all
saintes, and to go in procession with the same
torchis with the blessid sacrament from the abbey
foundyd of the Holy Trenite in Mykylgate in the
said cite on to the cathedrall chyrch of Saint Petir
in the same cite; and also have done and usyd
diwyrs odir right full good and honourabill deides,
as her aftir it shall more playnly apeir. It is
ordenyd and esyablyshid be the said mair, aldermen,
and all the holl counsell of the said full nobill cite,
be the consent and assent of all tham of the said
occupacion in the said cite, that the said fratemite
and bredirhode shalbe here after for ewyr kept and
continend as it has beyn in tymis passid, and that
every brodir thar of shall pay yerly for the sus-
tentadon thar of vjd, that is to say, at every half?
yer iij 4 , providyng allway that every man of the
said occupadon within the said cite shalnot be
compellid ne boundeyn to be of the said fraternite
ne brodirhood, ne noyn to be thar of bot soch as
will of thar free will.”

54

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

X>. Religious Life

Insistence can hardly be too great on the
tremendous and wide-spread influence of the Church
in the Middle Ages. The greatness of the Church
continued during the fifteenth century ; it derived
from the traditions of an age when absolute power
prevailed, from the undisputed usage of centuries,
from a logical system of dogmas, and from inter¬
national sanctions. The ornate services, allegiance
to the distant Pope, the immense hold of the priests
on the laity, the large territorial possessions of
ecclesiastical bodies, impressed the people with the
power of the Church. These things came to the
fifteenth century as established facts. The spirit
of revolt indeed had appeared with Wiclif and his
followers in the fourteenth century, but Rollardy
met with severe repressive opposition. It was
not till Tudor times that the new spirit, stimu¬
lated by the Revival of Reaming, the Reformation,
the invention of printing from type, geographical
discovery, the suppression of long years of inter¬
necine warfare, and the establishment of a strong

RELIGIOUS LIFE

55

government, had accumulated enough energy to
burst the bonds of medievalism. The fifteenth
century was at the end of an age.

It is interesting to note that Wiclif (d. 1384),
one of England’s greatest men, was ordained in
York. He stands out as a “daring and inspired
pioneer ” who strove to provide the land with
priests who were true and earnest shepherds. He
attempted the superhuman task of reviving true
religion among a people that had become to a certain
extent dull, irreverent, ignorant, and thoroughly
superstitious.

By the fifteenth century the Church was suffering
from those ills which needed and later gained drastic
treatment. The Church had done almost miraculous
work in the first few centuries of its existence, if we
think only of the success with which it substituted
its system of morality for that of pagan Rome. The
fifteenth century followed those centuries when the
Church of England, under the direction of great and
earnest men, was doing its work with conspicuous
success. Yet, the very forces that enabled the Church
to make itself a living power in the Dark Ages, the
early centuries embracing the Fall of Rome, the
Empire of Charlemagne, and the kingship of Alfred
the Great, became harmful to its continued activity
beneficially in many directions. The inadequacy of
its work in these centuries appears in the lack of
spiritual activity and in the predominance of the
material side of religion. The mediaeval Church
suffered badly from excessive conservatism, which
led towards sloth and a complacent inactivity.
The morbid element showed itself during the fifteenth
century mainly in lack of real earnestness, in the
enjoyment of luxurious laziness, and in the steady
neglect of the age to revise its Christianity. The

56

A MEDIEVAL CITY

Church, moreover, with its complete segregation
from other estates of the realm had become un¬
popular socially, while in its political and temporal
aspects it had become an immense corporation
with strong vested interests. Kings found it
necessary to fight it; religious reformers had to
rise up and overcome every form of repression used
against them. The decadence is exemplified in¬
cidentally in the increasing poverty in material and
expression of the monastic chronicles, which practi¬
cally died out by 1485. The period of turmoil and
change was yet to come.

Such was the general state of affairs. Never¬
theless the forms and practices of the Church
continued. The granting of indulgences and pardons,
the inexhaustible demand for Peter’s pence, went
on vigorously. A recognised means of publicly
raising funds was employed in February, 1455-6,
when the Archbishop proclaimed an indulgence of
forty days to those who would help the Friars
Preachers, whose cloister and buildings including
34 cells, together with their books, vestments,
jewels, and sacred vessels, had been destroyed by
fire.

The faith of the ordinary citizen was, however,
intact. The Church came into the people’s life
daily. The citizen could not walk away from his
home without seeing a church, and meeting a priest
or a friar. He attended the Church services and
fulfilled his religious duties. Baptism, marriage,
death, illness, public rejoicing, soldiering, dramatic
entertainments, the language of daily life—all
these bore the stamp of the Church. The very
days of relief from work were holy-days, feast days
in the Church’s calendar. Taking part in the
public processions on Corpus Christi Day, a great

RELIGIOUS LIFE

57

annual holiday, was a religious exercise; at the
same time this day was devoted especially to
entertainment. Wills of the century show that the
citizens lived as religiously as formerly. This spirit
is seen perhaps most characteristically in the numbers
of candles that wealthy citizens bequeathed for
use in church, and in the sums of money they
left to specified clergy and other “ religious"
for the provision of masses for the souls of them¬
selves, their wives and families, and for those for
whom they ought to pray. Masses were thus
provided for by hundreds, and in some cases by-
thousands. The following extracts from the will 1
of a rich citizen and merchant of York, who had
been sheriff and mayor of the city, show admirably
the spirit of a member of the middle class in the
fifteenth century: —

“ In the name of God Amen. The 4th day of
September in the year of our Lord 1436, I Thomas
Bracebrig, Citizen and merchant, York, sound of
mind and having health of body, establish and
dispose my Will in this manner. First, I command
and bequeath my soul to God Almighty, to the
blessed Mary, Mother of God and ever Virgin, and
to All Saints, and my body to be buried in the parish
church of St. Saviour in York, before the image of
the Crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ, next to the
bodies of my wives and children lately buried there,
for having which burial in that place I bequeath to
the fabric of the same parish church 20s. Also
I bequeath for my mortuary my best garment with
hood appropriate for my body. Also I bequeath to
Mggi-pr John Amall, Rector of the said parish church

x As translated from the Latin by the late Mr. R. B. Cook
and found among his valuable contributions to the publications
of The Yorkshire Architectural Society.

58

A MEDIEVAL CITY

for my tithes and. oblations forgotten, and that he
may more specially pray for my soul, 20s. Also
I bequeath for two candles to burn at my exequies
30 lbs. of wax. Also xo torches to burn around my
body on the said day of my burial, and that each
torch shall contain in itself 14 lbs. of pure wax. . . .
Also I bequeath to 10 men carrying or holding the
said 10 Torches in my exequies 10 Gowns, so that
each of the said 10 poor men shall have in his gown
and hood 3| ells of russet or black cloth, and that
the aforesaid gowns shall be lined with w r hite woollen
cloth. And I will that my Executors shall pay for
the making of the same gowns with hoods. . . .
Also I will and ordain that two fit and proper
chaplains shall be found to celebrate for my soul,
and the souls of my parents, wives, children,
benefactors, and for the souls of those for whom I
am bound or am debtor, as God shall know in that
respect, and for the souls of all the faithful departed,
for one whole year, immediately after my decease,
in my parish church. ...”

The will is a very long one. Altogether 470 lbs.
of wax, to last 15 years, w'ould be necessary to
satisfy the requirements of the will. 765 masses
are specially arranged for; besides, provision was
made for masses to be said by more than 21
chaplains, the religious of 5 priories for women, and
by every friar and priest of the four orders of friars
in York. There were also bequests to 2 anchoresses,
1 anchorite, and 1 hermit, to pray for the soul
of the testator and the souls aforesaid. Bequests
were made to the poor of St. Saviour’s; to
lepers “ in the 4 houses for lepers in the suburbs,”
to the poor in maisons-dieu; to the prisoners in
the Gastle, in the Archbishop’s prison, and in the
Kidcote. The testator ordered gifts of coal, wood,

RELIGIOUS LIFE

59

and shoes, and 1000 white loaves of bread, to be
made among the poor and needy. The bequests to
relatives and directions to the Executors occupy
a large part of the Will, which is that of a particularly
wealthy and important citizen. Charity, however,
was a marked characteristic of these men who had
become rich through trade. With a generous
spirit they put into practice the teachings about
giving to the poor and to prisoners. The amount
of money spent in founding chantries, in paying
priests for masses for the departed, testifies to their
faith.

It was part of the policy of the Church to keep
the instruction of the people, young and old, in its
own control. Practically all the educational work
in York during the century was the work of the
Church.

Through the monasteries and hospitals the
Church did valuable work in feeding the poor,
helping the needy, and in educating the poorer
citizens’ boys. The royal Hospital of St. Leonard
did such work. It was a peculiar institution, being
under the authority of the King, and containing a
sisterhood as well as a brotherhood. It included
a grammar school and' a song-school. As an
institution it was self-supporting; food was made
on the premises, and the carpenters’ and similar work
was done by brethren in the Hospital's own -work¬
shops.

The large number of priests were variously
employed. There were priests who officiated in
the monastic churches, in the parish churches (as
rectors and chaplains, of whom there were 300 in
York in 1436), in the cathedral where the number
of chantry-chapels was very great and where services
were held simultaneously as well as frequently.

60

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

Some priests were vicars, that is, while the living
or “ cure ” of souls was held by the rector, the
vicar was the actual priest in charge, for the rector
probably held more than one benefice and could
not serve personally in more than one. Generally
it was a corporate body, like the Dean and Chapter,
or a monastery, that was the rector of a number of
livings at the same time.

Of the many clergy serving the Minster the
Dean, who was the incumbent, ranked first. Much
of the revenue of the Dean and Chapter, the
Governing Body, came from landed possessions in
York and various parts of the surrounding country.
These possessions, divided into prebends, provided
livings for the thirty-six prebendaries or canons,
who collectively formed the Chapter. Each canon
served at the Minster during a specified portion of
the year, when he lived at his residence at York.
The residences of the prebendaries were mostly
round the Minster Close. While his own parish was
served vicariously while he was at York, each canon
had a minor-canon or vicar-choral to act as his
deputy at York when he was absent. These vicars-
choral formed a corporate body and lived collegiately
in the Bedem. The numerous chantries in the
Minster were served by priests who also lived
collegiately but at St. William’s College. The
College, at the head of which was a Provost, was
founded about the middle of the century. Previously
these priests had lived in private houses.

The parish priest was occupied in performing
the services in his church, in hearing confessions,
in teaching the children, in visiting, interrogating,
consoling, and ministering the Sacraments to the
sick and dying, and in guiding and sharing the life
of his parish generally. Each parish church had

RELIGIOUS LIFE

61

a number of clergy besides tbe parish priest attached
to it: the number varied from one to ten or more
according to the number of chantries at the church.
Each priest was helped a great deal in parochial
affairs by the parish clerk. The latter was the
chief lay official for business in connection with the
parish church. His duties required him to be a man
of some education.

The Archbishop was both bishop of the diocese
of York, and head of all the dioceses which together
formed the Northern Province of the two provinces
into which England was divided for the purpose of
Church rule. His diocese formerly extended so
far south as to include Nottingham and Southwell.

The Archbishop was a Primate and occupied a
high position in the State. Besides - being supreme
head of the Church in the northern province, he was
a great landowner. He possessed, besides his palace
near the Minster, a number of seats (like Cawood
Castle) in the country. When he was in London
he resided at his fine official palace, York House.
The Archbishops were great lords of the realm in
every way. Archbishop Neville, brother of Warwick
“ the king-maker,” celebrated his installation in
1465 with a very famous feast. The huge amount
and delicacy of the dishes prepared, the number
of retainers employed, the splendour of the scene,
which was honoured by the presence of the Duke of
Gloucester and members of some of the most noble
families in the kingdom, all the details of this
sumptuous feast, were intended to impress King
Edward IV. with the might of the Nevilles.

Ecclesiastical preferment was often a reward for
services in other branches of the service of the State.
Sometimes great offices in the Church and the
State were held simultaneously. Thus, Archbishop

62

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

Rotherham was also Chancellor of England for a
time. Both Richard Scrope and William Booth,
archbishops of the century, had been lawyers. The
appointment of George Neville, who had been
nominated w'hen only twenty-three to the see of
Exeter, was a purely political one, the bestowing
of a high and lucrative office on a member of a noble
family that was enjoying the full sunshine of popu¬
larity and power. The King could also benefit from
Church positions otherwise than by presenting them
to partisans. During the two and a half years that
the see of York was kept vacant between the time
of the execution of Archbishop Scrope and the
appointment of Henry Bow r ett (in 1407), the revenues
went, in accordance with the established practice,
to the royal purse.

There were also “ clerks,” educated men, but
not priests, who were in “ minor orders.” Many a
man, asserting that he was a clerk, made application
for trial by an ecclesiastical court, so as to get the
benefit of the less stringent judgment of the Church
courts, to which belonged the right of dealing with
ecclesiastical offenders.

One abuse within the Church was pluralism, that
is, the holding of more than one office at the same time
with the result that the holder was drawing revenue
for work he could not himself do. William Sever,
for instance, while Abbot of St. Mary’s, York, became
Bishop of Carlisle. These two high offices, one mon¬
astic and the other secular, he held simultaneously
from 1495 to 1502.

The religious orders were of two kinds, viz. monks
(and nuns) who lived in seclusion in monasteries,
abbeys, or convents, and friars, who lived under a
rule but came out into the world to preach and work.
Both kinds took the vows of chastity, poverty, and

RELIGIOUS LIFE

63

obedience to the rule (e.g., Cistercian or Benedictine,
Franciscan or Dominican). Some, but not all,
monks and friars were priests. There were four
well-known orders of mendicant friars, viz. Fran¬
ciscan (Grey friars, friars minor), Dominican (Black
friars, friars preachers), Carmelite (White friars).

SEMI-CHOIR OF FRANCISCANS.

From a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript

Augustinian (Austin canons). Monks and friars
wore sandals, and long, loose gowns with hoods or
cowls which they could pull over their heads to serve
as hats. The alternative titles of some of the orders
of friars came from the colour of their friars’ gowns.
The Carmelites used undyed cloth, which was white
in comparison with the black of the Dominicans.
The Benedictine monks of St. Mary’s Abbey wore

64 A MEDIEVAL CITY

black garments. Their heads were shaved on the
crown, the technical term for which was the tonsure.

Monks spent their time in attending the frequent
services in the monastery church, which they entered
at the night and early morning services directly
from the dormitories; in copying manuscripts,
which occupied a large part of their day ; in contem¬
plation and in study ; in manual work; in recreation.
The cloister where work was carried on and the
church were the essential buildings of the monastery.
Monastic life centred in these two places. Its
arrangements were dictated by the purpose of
making a religious atmosphere pervade everything ;
thus a religious book was read at meals.

The luxury and laxity that obtained in monastic
life were not confined to the fifteenth century.
The Archbishop had frequent occasion in the four¬
teenth century to complain, for instance, of the use
by monks and nuns of ornaments, and of clothes of
finer material than the traditional rule permitted.
He condemned the wearing of clothes cut to a worldly
pattern. The religious had to be admonished from
time to time not to admit strangers within the
cloister, and to conform in all respects strictly to
their rule.

During the century St. Mary’s Abbey contained
about sixty monks, including the Abbot, the supreme
head, and the Prior, who held the second highest
office; besides, there was a very large number of
lay-brethren, servants and officers, for in addition
to the internal work at the abbey, there was the
management of the abbey estates and business.
Abbots and monks were always keen traders. Alto¬
gether the personnel of St. Mary’s might have
numbered about two hundred.

The influence of such a monastery as St. Mary’s

. RELIGIOUS LIFE

65

was very far from being restricted to affairs within
the abbey walls. Through its Abbot it had
a spokesman in the House of Lords. There -were
cells dependant on the abbey and often at a distance.
The Abbot had a number of residences in the
country and one in London. The abbey itself had
numerous possessions of land and manors in many
parts of the country. This was a principal source
of revenue. St. Mary’s Abbey also had jurisdiction
over many churches, not only in York and Yorkshire,
but in other counties as well. The other monastic
institutions and the Minster and some of the hospitals,
for example St. Leonard’s, had similar rights of
jurisdiction and the ownership of land, property,
and churches.

In some of the churchyards there lived anchorites,
anchoresses, and hermits. These were individuals
who chose to live a solitary life spent in prayer and
religious work. Anchorites led a life of strict
seclusion, for they were literally shut in their cells,
from the world. They did not, however, eschew all
intercourse with others, for their solitary lives of
devotion, and in some cases of study, gave them a
reputation for wisdom that led people to seek them
for their advice. Permission was given by the
Church authorities to those who took up this mode
of life, the assumption of which formed part of a
special service. The Pontifical of Archbishop Bain-
bridge, who held the see from 1508 to 1514, contains
an office for the Enclosing of an Anchorite. Hermits
lived in less strict seclusion. Their aims were similar,
but they went about in the world doing good works.

One of the worst features of the religious
decadence of the Middle Ages was the craftiness
of such spurious types of men as those whom
Chaucer "painted in the Pardoner and the Somonour,

66

A MEDIEVAL CITY

and Charles Reade depicted in the peripatetic
“ cripples ” of “ The Cloister and the Hearth.”
Chaucer wrote in the true spirit of comedy mores
corrigere ridendo, hut Langland, his contemporary,
who described similar types of men of State as well
as of Church, did so from the point of view of a moral
reformer whose satire is a trenchant weapon.

There were many other types of religious men,
but it must suffice to refer to Pardoners, who by
virtue' of papal bulls gave pardons, expecting,
exacting if necessary, a reward in return, and to
mention only palmers and pilgrims, who were seen
in York when they came to visit the shrine of St.
William in the Minster. The palmers were pilgrims
who had visited the Holy Land. They liked to wear
a scallop-shell in their broad-brimmed hats as a
sign of their extensive travels. Journeying from
shrine to shrine was a favourite occupation, a
professional one, of those pilgrims who loved a
wandering and easy life, seeing the sights and living
at the expense of the monastic hospitality. Some
pilgrimages were done by proxy, through the
employment of professional pilgrims. A pilgrimage
to a shrine celebrated for miraculous cures or the
efficacy of the spiritual benefit derived from worship¬
ping at it and invoking the help of the saint, was for
many an exercise of deep religious devotion. There
is no doubt, moreover, that at the shrines of the
saints the Church proved itself a great healer. It
was in fact the popular physician. Apart from
surgery, the medical practice of the twentieth
century is in some ways the successor of that of the
Church of the fifteenth.

When very popular religious men died, or when,
if they were already dead as in the case of William,
Archbishop of York (who died in 1153 and was

EDUCATION

67

canonised in 1227), popularity sprang up, it was
quite usual for it to be discovered that miracles were
being wrought at their tombs. The case of the
popular Archbishop Scrope who was executed is a
typical one. In this way the calendar of saints was
enlarged, the devout had a new interest, the Church
maintained its position in the popular eye and mind,
and its funds increased.

The mediseval Church, however, appeared perhaps
at its best in its Church services, which drew their
effect from the sanctity of the magnificent building
(whether cathedral or parish church), the awe inspired
by the Church politic, the use of Latin and the
learned atmosphere, the religious teaching, and, not
least, the imposing ceremonies, and the ornate
ritual performed amid a profusion of lighted wax
candles by priests and dignitaries in resplendent
vestments.

E. Education

<Che only school engaged in higher education in
York in the century was St. Peter’s School, a. very
old foundation) where Alcuin, who (in 782) had
carried educational reform to the land of the Franks,
had been master. At this school, which was attached
to the cathedral, were educated those who were
to spend their lives in scholarship, especially, as now,
after residence at Oxford or Cambridge ; future
priests and clerks ; the sons of the nobility and of the
more wealthy members of the merchant class in the
city. Other regular schools were the Grammar School
at the royal Hospital of St. Leonard and the one at
Fossgate Hospital. This educational work was one
of the most valuable kinds of public work done by
these hospitals.

68

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

A more elementary and less well organised educa¬
tion was given by the parish priests and the chantry
priests, from whom the children of the city generally,
boys and girls, received at least oral instruction.

Girls usually received a practical upbringing at
home. The only schools for girls were those attached
to women’s monasteries, of which there was St.
Clement’s Nunnery alone in York.

Educational welfare -work, as distinct from
direct and organised class-teaching, was carried on
by the friars, the religious men who lived under a
rule but who went out to work in the world, instead
of spending their lives in seclusion as the monks did.
The Dominican and Franciscan Friars played an
important part in education by teaching, especially
at the Universities. Education was also a foremost
interest of the Augustinians, who supported a college
at Oxford.

Books, which had all to be written by hand, were
scarce. The copying of manuscripts, which was
done mostly in the monasteries, was laborious work.
Instruction was given as a rule orally, but also by
means of pictorial art and drama. The stained-
glass windows were more than ornamental additions
to the church building : they were part of the means
of instruction. Mediseval drama had originated in
the Church’s effort to make events described in the
gospel more real through their representation
dramatically.

/The teaching of manual skill and craftsmanship
was entirely the work of the masters of the crafts
under the general supervision of the guilds.' The
work of the age was made beautiful, and being
handwork each piece of work gained the interest of
individuality. The details of architectural ornament,
in consequence, show wonderful diversity of form.

EDUCATION

00

The naive spirit of the ordinary handicraft workman
was often reflected in his w'ork. The arts of the
goldsmith, silversmith, bell-founder, vestment-maker
(which required elaborate embroidery), and the
sculptor, were practised in York with excellent
results. ■>,

There has never been a university of York,
although under Alcuin the school of York was doing
work of high quality, work that gained European
fame. Even within the last hundred years, when so
many provincial universities and university colleges
have been established, York, one of the most
appropriate places, has not obtained a university.

New r s and information reached the citizens mainly
from personal intercourse. Merchants visiting other
cities discussed with fellow" merchants not only their
immediate business but also past and current events.
Pilgrims, palmers, and sailors recited their adventures
on distant seas and lands, and told of the wonders
of the w T orld. The ordinary citizen, w’ho read
little, depended on conversations with better-
informed citizens and strangers. The city council
was continually in communication with the King and
the great officers of State : information filtered dorvn
from the council to the citizens. The messengers
often supplied the latest semi-official news. Officials
and servants attached to the royal sendee or to that
of nobles or of ecclesiastics (like the Archbishop of
York), were the source of much political gossip.
The new T s of the country passed to and fro between
the city and the monastic lands, the castles, the
manors, and the forests by means of the visits of
men who lived at those places. Markets and fairs
and public assemblies, whether the holding of assizes
or on State visits, were occasions for the dissemina¬
tion of news. The ordinary citizen gathered news

F

70

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

and information also from the pulpit and from
guild and parochial meetings, and from the bell¬
man. The only authoritative news he received at
first hand he got by listening to the public reading of
proclamations.

In the Middle Ages educated men who had no
inclination for the life of the Church, monastic or
secular, nor for landed proprietorship, with which
was combined hunting and soldiering, became clerks.
The clerks in the royal sendee helped in the work
of administration of national affairs. Tradesmen's
sons of ability and opportunity succeeded in gaining
good positions in this sendee. Nobles also employed
clerks.

Altogether there seems to have been in the
fifteenth century good provision for higher education.
The people of the Middle Ages were not illiterate.
The outstanding age of illiteracy (not to mention
a host of other evils) in England was the age that
began with the Industrial Revolution, when states¬
men failed to make the public services keep pace
with the rapidly increasing population and the rapid
development of new conditions. That there was as
large a public ready and eager to buy the books that
printing from type made possible has been regarded
as a disproof of general illiteracy. The books were
published in the vernacular: the people read them.
It was in 1476 that Caxton set up his press at West¬
minster. The first printing press established in
Yprk was set up in 1509.

(Nevertheless the general state of education and
scholarship in England in the fifteenth century was
at a low level, mainly owing to lack of enthusiasm
and to the limited subjects of study. Natural
science was unable yet to flourish. Mediaeval
education was humanistic, but the old springs of this

EDUCATION

71

form of study were nearly dried up. The Greek
classics were entirely lost.} Even the few Eatin
classics that the mediaevals possessed, they did not
understand aright. To Virgil's ^Sneid they gave a
Christian interpretation ! Grammar was the basis
of study, which dealt mainly with such works as
those of Cicero, Virgil, Boethius.

The fifteenth century, the last century of an age,
was a backwater in education, as in literature. The
great revival *was to come. "-The fifteenth century
was indeed a century of revolution in so far as under
the almost placid surface of continuity 7 * and confor¬
mity, there w*ere forces of revolt at work, probing,
accumulating knowledge and experience, perhaps
unconsciously, for the day of liberation and changeJ
The Bible was not yet popularly 7 available. ^ Wiclif
had been a pioneer in the w'ork of translation and
publication, but Tyndale and Coverdale in the
sixteenth century supplied what he had aimed at
doing in the fourteenth. The fifteenth century
was the quiet dark hour before the dawn. As Cole¬
ridge expressed it: No sooner had the Revival of
Learning “ sounded through Europe like the blast of
an archangel's trumpet than from king to peasant
there arose an enthusiasm for knowledge, the dis¬
covery of a manuscript became the subject of an
embassy: Erasmus read by moonlight because he
could not afford a torch, and begged a penny, not
for the love of charity 7 , but for the love of learning."
But even then, when the enthusiasm and the will
were there, such was the dearth of material for
learning that, as in the case of Erasmus, the pioneers
had practically nothing to work at but the classical
texts and a few meagre vocabularies with etymologies
of mediaeval scholarship. In 149 1 Grocyn began to
teach Greek at Oxford. In 1499 Erasnms first

72 A MEDIEVAL CITY

visited England. Referring to his visit to this
country in 1505-6 he wrote : “ There are in London
live or sis men who are thorough masters of both
Latin and Greek; even in Italy I doubt that you
would find their equals.” England’s position was,
therefore, in this respect a good one.

E. Entertainments

In the Middle Ages holidays were taken at festivals
marked in the Church calendar. Some feasts, like
that of Whitsuntide, were universally observed.
The ordinary length of a festival was eight days,
that is, the full week—the octave. Apart from
pilgrimages, the ordinary people travelled little.
Moreover the life and property of travellers were
not altogether secure in the forest land, with the
result that treasure and distinguished people travelled
under the care of an armed escort. A large city like
York was practically self-supporting in public
amusements. £The fifteenth century saw the full
development of the religious mystery plays, and
the allegorical morality plays, which with their
comic interludes had become popular ’ from the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The feast

ENTERTAINMENTS

73

of Corpus Christi (instituted about 1263) was the
most important time in the year for the playing of
these typically mediaeval dramas. Begun more
than three centuries earlier within the Church and
performed by the clergy, as a dramatic reinforcement
of the sendees and preaching, the mediaeval drama
owed its origin mainly to the Church, which main¬
tained its influence as long as this drama continued.
It soon came into the care of laymen, who took
part in the productions. In the fifteenth century,
these plays, which were produced almost entirely
by laymen, were so numerous that they were formed
in cycles or groups. The texts of some of the
most famous cycles, those of York, Chester, Wake¬
field, and Coventry, have survived. The various
trade-guilds made themselves responsible for the
production of one pageant of the local cycle, or two
or three guilds joined to produce a pageant, so that
the whole city produced a large number of plays to
celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi. Among its
officers a guild had its pageant-master, whose duty
it was to supervise the guild’s dramatic work.

7 The York plays, the texts dating from the
middle of the fourteenth century, are extant. In
1415 fifty-seven pageant plays were produced.
Productions were made in York down to 1579 *
The following are examples taken from among the
fifty-seven plays and guilds

The Shipwrights produced
the Fishers and

Mariners ,,

the Spicers „

the Tilers

the Goldsmiths ,,

the Vintners ,,

the Building of the Ark,

Noah and the Flood,
„ Annunciation,

,, Birth of Christ,

„ Adoration,

„ Wedding in Cana,

74

A MEDIEVAL CITY

the Skinners produced the entry into Jerusa¬
lem,

the Baxters „ „ Bast Supper,

the Tapiters and

Couchers „ Christ before Pilate,

the Saucemakers „ „ Death of Judas,

the Bouchers „ „ Death of Christ,

the Carpenters „ „ Resurrection,

the Scriveners „ „ Incredulity of

Thomas,

the Tailors „ „ Ascension,

the Mercers „ „ Day of Judgment.

The full cycle gave in dramatic form the leading
episodes of the Scriptures from the Creation to the
Bast Day.

■While the trade-guilds were thus responsible for
individual pageants, help and control were given by
the Guild of Corpus Christi (inaugurated in 1408
and incorporated in 1459), and the city council.
The guild had a very large number of members,
among whom were the Archbishop, many bishops and
abbots and nobles. These dramatic productions
belonged to the religious and social sides of the guilds.
The plays, however, did not always provoke pleasure,
for sometimes members of some of the guilds
complained of the financial burden they were forced
to bear in order to produce the plays allotted to
them.

The guilds also took part in public processions
with torches on Corpus Christi Day in celebration
of this popular festival. In the processions, which
were closely connected with the religious and
guild-phases of city life, there walked city clergy
wearing their surplices, the master of the Guild
of Corpus Christi, the guild officials, the bearers

ENTERTAINMENTS

75

of the shrine of the guild, the mayor, aldermen
and corporation, and officers and members of
the Guild of Corpus Christi and of the city trade-
guilds. As the procession went on its way litanies
and chants were sung by the clergy. The shrine,
the central feature of the procession, was presented
in 1449. It was itself of gilt and had many images
some of which were gilded, while the main ones under
the “ steeple ” -were in mother-of-pearl, silver, and
gold: to it were attached rings, brooches, girdles,
buckles, beads, gawds and crucifixes, in gold and
silver, and adorned with coral and jewels.

On the occasion of the processions and per¬
formances of pageants, as at fairs, the city was
filled with a boisterous multitude which turned
what was by tradition a religious exercise and
entertainment, to a time of riotous merry-making
and uncouth disorder. In 1426 a kind of crusade
was preached by a friar minor, William Melton,
against the riotous and drunken conduct of the
people at the Corpus Christi festival. He denounced
the disgracing of the festival and affirmed that the
people were forfeiting by their conduct the in¬
dulgences granted for the festival. The result of
the friar's crusade was the holding of a special
meeting of the city council, which decided that the
processions and pageants were to be held on separate
days, the pageants on the eve of Corpus Christi,
and the procession on the feast itself. Formerly
both had taken place on the same day.

" The pageants were produced in suitable parts
of the city. Stages on wheels were brought to
these places, some of them open spaces, others main
streets. The stages, which were the work of
citizen workmen, were of three storeys, the central
and principal one, the stage proper, representing

76

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

the earth. Demons, in gaudy attire, came up from
the flame-region of the lowest storey; divine
messengers and personages came down from the
star and cloud adorned upper storey. The tiring-
room was below and behind the stage. The acting
was by members of the guilds. They, no doubt,
practised here, as elsewhere, the ranting delivery
of their speeches so denounced by Hamlet in his
critical address to the Players, whom he admonished
to speak “ trippingly on the tongue ” and not to
“ out-Herod Herod.” There are several references in
Shakespeare to these plays of the Middle Ages. For
instance, in Twelfth Night:

" Like to the old Vice

Who with dagger of lath
In his rage and his wrath,

Cries, Ah, ah 1 to the devil.”

and in Henry V.:

this roaring devil i’ the old play
that every one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger.”

Stands for spectators were erected by private
enterprise for profit in many places in the city.
The general assembly, preparatory to the beginning
of the performanes, took place on Pageant Green,
now called Toft Green (which lies behind that side
of Micklegate which is opposite Holy Trinity).
The first performances were made at the gates of
Holy Trinity Priory (on the west side of the river) ;
there were four performances in Micklegate (a
street near the Priory) ; four in Coney Street (the
main street on the east side of the river)—and
likewise performances in other parts of the city.
The last three performances took place at the gates
of the Minster, in Dow Petergate, and in Pavement,
which was one of the city market squares.

CLASSES

77

When Richard III. came to York in 1483, part
of his entertainment consisted of performances of
pageants.

The only other public dramatic entertainments
were crude, coarse, popular plays, done by stro lling
players. A mediaeval crowd at fair time was
entertained by mountebanks, tumblers, and similar
rough makers of unrefined mirth.

The Corporation had a band of minstrels in its
sendee.

Of physical games archery was the most
practised. This was the national physical exercise,
one which had helped the English soldiers to gain
a great reputation for themselves, as at Agincourt
(1415). At York the ” butts,” where men practised
archery, were outside the city walls.

G. Classes

Class divisions were well marked. They appeared
in manners, in dress, and in occupation.

Fashions varied considerably as the century
progressed. There were close-fitting dresses and
loose ones, small head-dresses like the caul (a jewelled
net to bind in the hair) and high and broad erections
that went to the other extreme. Men now wore
their hair long; later they had it close-cropped.
Perhaps the most wonderful fashion was that
which men followed in wearing hose of different
colours. With all the vagaries of fashion the most
striking feature of dress was the use of rich and
a manifold variety of colours. Excepting the case
of the dress of the religious, which was generally
of a sombre hue, colour characterised men's clothes
as much as it did the dresses of women. The
doublet was the coat of the time. Sleeves were

78 A MEDIAEVAL CITY

generally big. Long and pointed shoes were
characteristic, but it was 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 were
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¬
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.

CLASSES

79

and chantry priests, and clerks. The monastic life
was a recognised profession. In the monasteries
there were, besides regular monks, novices or those
who aspired to take the full monastic vows, and,
especially in the fifteenth century, by which time
the importance of lowly, arduous sendee for the
brethren and personal labour had lapsed, a very
large number of semi-religious and lay brethren,
who were really servants to the regular monks.
In the fifteenth century the religious houses were
extremely wealthy. Some -of the monks were of
noble birth. Nobles, when travelling, usually
lodged at the monastic houses, which were dotted
all over England. The kings resided often at abbeys
when visiting the provinces. Richard III., when
Duke of Gloucester, resided at the Austin Friary in
York.

The one monastic house for women was St.
Clement’s Nunnery. There were, moreover, sister¬
hoods in the hospitals of, for example, St. Leonard
and St. Nicholas.

St. Leonard's Hospital, among its many functions,
was a home of royal pensioners.

The townspeople were chiefly merchants and
tradesmen and those they employed, and the wives
and f am ilies of all of them. Men of this type, both
rich and poor, rose to important positions in trade
and city life, and in the King’s service. Some
entered the service of nobles. Great dignity was
attached to the higher positions of authority in city
and guild life. Trade led to wealth and increased
comfort and a higher social state. Men in the King’s
service received preferment more often than direct
monetary rewrard.

Women had only the monastic life to enter as a
profession. They could become full members of a

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 w ? ho, 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 w r ere 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

CLASSES

England disappeared toward the end of the fifteenth
century, dwelt apart for fear of infecting the
healthy. The four hospitals outside the four main
entrances to the city served to keep the disease
isolated.

York received from time to time a large number
and a great diversity of visitors. Distinguished
visitors usually received gifts from the Corporation.
Kings, queens, and full court and retinue came,
and sometimes the entire houses of Parliament.
At such times great crowds of nobles, spiritual lords,
commoners, officers, military and civil, thronged
the city and taxed its accommodation. On such an
occasion as Richard Ill.’s attendance at the Minster
for mass, or the visit of Henry V., the narrow streets
were packed to suffocation with people assembled
to watch the processions of gorgeously arrayed
sovereigns, princes, peers, ecclesiastics, soldiers, and
distinguished commoners. The Duke of Gloucester,
afterwards Richard III., was very popular in the
North, especially in York, where he was received
(as in 1483) with magnificence and festivity. The
north was loyal to him and gave him much support
in his pohtical schemes.

The visits of the royal judges of assize, of sailors
and pilgrims, have already been mentioned. Pedlars,
who were active nomad tradesmen, were always to
be found in town and country dealing in their
small wares.

Last, and some of the unhappiest, among the
types of people to be found in a mediaeval city were
serfs who had absconded from the lands or. the
service to which they were bound. They sometimes
fled to a city for the security it afforded. Serfdom,
however, was rapidly disappearing.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

L IFE in York in the fifteenth century was
active. Trade, home and continental, was
flourishing. Building operations were in hand;
work was always proceeding at the Minster or at
one or other of the religious houses and churches.
There were so many social elements established in
and visiting York that something of interest was
always taking place. Entertainments were plentiful
and pageants were as well produced in York as
anywhere in the kingdom. The city enjoyed a
particularly large measure of local government.
Its reputation was great. According to contem¬
porary standards it was a fine prosperous city, one
that contained resplendent ecclesiastical buildings
that were second to none. In short, it was a “ full
nobill cite.”

Although the present city looks, in parts, more
typically mediaeval than modem, York to-day forms
a very great contrast with the fifteenth-century city.
We are separated from the fifteenth century by the
Renaissance, the Reformation, and Tudor England,
by the Civil War and the Restoration, by the “ age
of prose and reason,” the keen-minded and rough-
mannered eighteenth century, by the Industrial
Revolution, and by that second Renaissance, the

CONCLUSION

8#

Victorian Age, during which the amenities of daily
life were revolutionised. Radical changes are to be
seen, for example, in the style of architecture, the
mode of transmission of news, the methods of trans¬
port, the form of municipal government, the main¬
tenance of the public peace, and in social relation¬
ships, more particularly with regard to industry and
commerce and the parts played by employer and
employed. The number of inhabitants to-day is
about six times that of the mediaeval city. The
contrast, which is so great in most wa} T s as to be
quite obvious, is an interesting and profitable study,
but it might have been founded on more precise
data, for, great as is the amount of valuable material
that York can supply concerning its history, in¬
vestigation shows how much greater that amount
would have been had the city and its rulers during
the last century or two realised the value of the
accumulated original historical riches that it
contained.

Whereas the moderns obliterated practically
all they came against, fortunately the earlier people
were content to make no change beyond what was
immediately necessary. Hence the survival of
material most valuable to the historian and archaeolo¬
gist. York, as it is to-day, is a city marvellously
rich in survivals of past ages. It is also, as a result
especially of the nineteenth century, a city of de¬
struction. While we may regret but not repine at
the disappearance of much of interest and value as
the result of progress, yet wanton, ruthless destruc¬
tion, such as has taken place within the last century,
deserves the sternest denunciation. In spite of its
being, in consequence, a “ city of destruction,”
York is a store-house of original material for the
history of England. Its records are in earth, stone.

84

A MEDIAEVAL CITY

brick, wood, plaster, bone, and coin-metal; on
parchment, paper, and glass ; above the ground and
below it—everywhere and in every form. This
wealth of historical material, connected with practi¬
cally every period of our national history, is a price¬
less possession and one that is not yet exhausted.

THE END

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