I. Lawson's Prefatory Address.
II. Lawson's Brief Account.
III. Letter to Jonathan Corwin.
IV. Extracts from Mr. Parris's Church Records.
decoration
aced 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 ToC
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. 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.
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 ToC
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.
[1] Derived from Latin foris=outside, without (the city).
