APPEARANCE
A. GENERAL APPEARANCE
A general view of fifteenth-century York ("Everwyk" in Anglo-French
and "Eboracum" in Latin) would give the impression of a very compact
city within fortifications. Almost immediately 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 hundred 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 of the Church in all phases of life is indelibly marked on
this city.
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 own
defences, its massive walls, broad moats, outer and inner wards,
protected gateways, drawbridges and other tactical devices, conveys 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 whole 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 walls there are towers. Where the four main roads enter the city
there are the four gateways, or Bars, high enough to act as
watch-towers and fit by their solid construction to offer a stout
defence. The royal State keeps its stern watch around and within.
The third great element, the _People_, are represented 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 utilitarian yet beautiful above the
dwelling-houses, yet 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 mediæval England which had
a total population of about 2-1/2 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 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 was 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 well 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 that obtained within
the city walls. For the same purpose a bell was rung at St. Michael's,
Ouse Bridge.
There were a few buildings along the high-roads just outside the great
entrances, the Bars. Besides the few hovels and huts there were
hospitals for travellers. There were four hospitals for lepers, the
most wretched of all the sufferers from mediæval lack of cleanliness.
Most of the streets were mere alleys, passages between houses and
groups of buildings. They were very narrow and often the sky could
hardly be seen from them because of the overhanging upper storeys of
the buildings along each side. Goods in the Middle Ages and right down
to the nineteenth century were carried in towns by hand. Carriages and
waggons and carts were not very numerous and would have no need to
proceed beyond the main streets and the open squares. If men must
journey off their own feet, they rode horses. Pack-horses were used
regularly to carry goods, where nowadays a horse or, more probably, a
steam or motor engine would easily pull the goods conveniently placed
on a cart or lorry.
The paving of rough cobbles and ample mud was distinctly poor. There
was no adequate drainage; in fact there was very little attempt at any
beyond the provision of gutters down the middle or at the sides of the
streets. There were no regular street lights, and pavements, when they
existed, were too meagre to be of much use to pedestrians.
Streets led to the two open market-places of this mediæval 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 cattle market, were held in the streets. These
two market-places were the principal public open spaces, parts of a
town that are given such importance in modern town-planning schemes.
Other open spaces were the cloisters and gardens of the monasteries,
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 mediæval
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,[2] 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,[3] the Debtors'
Prison, and a Maison Dieu, that is, a kind of almshouse.
The present streets called Shambles (formerly Mangergate),[4] Finkle
Street, Jubbergate, Petergate, and especially Shambles, Little
Shambles, and the passages leading from them, help one to realise the
appearance of mediæval streets and ways.
C. BUILDINGS
[Illustration: COOKING WITH THE SPIT.]
_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, mint, 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.{original had ","} 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 mediæval 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 mediæval domestic
architecture.
Shops were distinguished by having the front of the ground floor
arranged as a show-room, warehouse, 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' 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 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.[5] Panelling was
used occasionally. The ventilation and hygienic conditions 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 rainwater, 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
mediæval 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 century elsewhere. No advance was
made in sanitation 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 were 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
silver, 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 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 dependents 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 appearance, but not monumental.
They reflected something 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 composed of stout beams and posts of timber.
The timber roofs were covered with tiles. Examples may be seen in the
Merchants' Hall, Fossgate, and St. Anthony's Hall in Peaseholm Green.
The wooden roof 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 including 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 depôt, 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 drawbridge 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 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 was 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 façade 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.[6] The Bar was supported
on each side by the mound and wall, 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.[7]
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
was practically completed in the fifteenth century, when the work of
erecting the three towers was finished. The architectural splendour 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.
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.
[Illustration: BISHOP AND CANONS.
_From Richard II.'s "Book of Hours."_]
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, the Chapter House, a magnificent octagonal parliament
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 architectural
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
architecture 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 mediæval architecture, together
make a single building that appears to possess the most felicitous
unity of general design and a perfectly 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 Lady
Chapel, the part of the choir to the east of the reredos, was very
important in pre-Reformation days when the cult of the Virgin was very
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
keenly 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 west 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,[8]
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 always 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, 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 royal foundation. With a
mitred abbot who sat among the lords spiritual in Parliament, St.
Mary'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 conventual 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, opposite
the Castle, seems, from the few odd fragments of stone that remain, to
have had fine buildings. 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. Mary's Abbey, prove how
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 mediæval city which
their buildings adorned, and of which they were 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 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 was 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 depôt 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 characterised 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 and aisles, towers or spires, bells, stained-glass windows, and
furniture, many of them being particularly rich in one or more of
these features. The painted windows[9] 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 mediæval dress and
furniture. It is interesting to compare the fifteenth-century work
with that done, for instance, by the William Morris firm to the
designs of Burne-Jones (1833-1898), at a time when the revived art,
with other forms of decoration, was 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 modern 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 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 man 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 windows. The portraits
of Nicholas and his son and their wives 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; 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 waterways in and near the city was vested in the
Corporation. Matters pertaining to navigation and shipping were
adjudged by an Admiralty Court under the King's Admiral, whose
jurisdiction extended from the Thames to the northern ports.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Derived from Latin foris=outside, without (the city).
[2] 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.
[3] Compare the Tollbooth, Edinburgh, and the Tolhouse, Yarmouth.
[4] Cf. French _manger_.
[5] Wall-paper, which still bears the influence of the hangings that
it replaced, came into general use early in the nineteenth century.
[6] 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.
[7] The winch and portcullis are still in existence in Monk Bar, and
in working order.
[8] 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 recumbent 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.
[9] 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, Goodramgate.