Life in a Mediaeval City Part 1

Life in a Mediaeval City.

by Edwin Benson.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In English history 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 nave spirit appears in their formal literature, as in Chaucer's account of the Canterbury pilgrims, in their decorated religious ma.n.u.scripts, in their thought, and very characteristically, in their architecture, 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 surpa.s.sed for majesty, beauty, size, and constructional skill. 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 const.i.tutional position, but during the Wars of the Roses it became less truly representative of the solid part of the nation, the middle cla.s.s, 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 flouris.h.i.+ng trade and an increasing sense of munic.i.p.al unity, and munic.i.p.al importance.

CHAPTER II

IMPORTANT FACTORS AFFECTING THE HISTORY OF YORK

A. GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION

Among the factors affecting this particular city geographical position is evidently the most important. It is to this, combined with the consequent 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 Nors.e.m.e.n, 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 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 west 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 decreased 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 Tyne to Solway Firth. Henceforth the wall marked the debatable frontier, but York never lost its strategic value. It was thus used by the Romans, William I., Edward I., Edward II., and Edward III. in their occupation of and their expeditions against the North.

It has served as a base depot 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 military values became, in 735, 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 were 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 n.o.bles of the realm.

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

CHAPTER III

APPEARANCE

A. GENERAL APPEARANCE

A general view of fifteenth-century York ("Everwyk" in Anglo-French and "Eborac.u.m" 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 ma.s.sive 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 mult.i.tude 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 ma.s.sive 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, cl.u.s.tering 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 ma.s.ses, 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 mediaeval 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-ent.i.ties, 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-ent.i.ties; 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 inst.i.tutions enjoyed a large measure of freedom from the rule of the munic.i.p.al 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 mediaeval lack of cleanliness.

Most of the streets were mere alleys, pa.s.sages 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 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 cattle market, were held in the streets. These two market-places were the princ.i.p.al public open s.p.a.ces, parts of a town that are given such importance in modern town-planning schemes.

Other open s.p.a.ces 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 pa.s.sage 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,[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 pa.s.sages leading from them, help one to realise the appearance of mediaeval streets and ways.

C. BUILDINGS

[Ill.u.s.tration: COOKING WITH THE SPIT.]