Life in a Mediaeval City Part 5

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 chast.i.ty, poverty, and 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. Franciscan (Grey friars, friars minor), Dominican (Black friars, friars preachers), Carmelite (White friars), 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 t.i.tles 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 black garments. Their heads were shaved on the crown, the technical term for which was the tonsure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEMI-CHOIR OF FRANCISCANS.

_From a Fifteenth-Century Ma.n.u.script._]

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 ma.n.u.scripts, which occupied a large part of their day; in contemplation 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 fourteenth 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. Altogether the personnel of St. Mary's might have numbered about two hundred.

The influence of such a monastery as St. Mary's 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 princ.i.p.al source of revenue. St. Mary's Abbey also had jurisdiction over many churches, not only in York and Yorks.h.i.+re, but in other counties as well. The other monastic inst.i.tutions and the Minster and some of the hospitals, for example St. Leonard's, had similar rights of jurisdiction and the owners.h.i.+p of land, property, and churches.

In some of the churchyards there lived anchorites, anch.o.r.esses, 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 a.s.sumption of which formed part of a special service. The Pontifical of Archbishop Bainbridge, 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, 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_, but 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-sh.e.l.l 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 wors.h.i.+pping 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 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 Sc.r.a.pe 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 mediaeval Church, however, appeared perhaps at its best in its Church services, which drew their effect from the sanct.i.ty 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

The 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 scholars.h.i.+p, especially, as now, after residence at Oxford or Cambridge; future priests and clerks; the sons of the n.o.bility and of the more wealthy members of the merchant cla.s.s 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.

A more elementary and less well organised education 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 cla.s.s-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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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-gla.s.s windows were more than ornamental additions to the church building: they were part of the means of instruction. Mediaeval 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 craftsmans.h.i.+p 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. The nave spirit of the ordinary handicraft workman was often reflected in his work. 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.

News 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 world. The ordinary citizen, who 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 down from the council to the citizens. The messengers often supplied the latest semi-official news. Officials and servants attached to the royal service or to that of n.o.bles or of ecclesiastics (like the Archbishop of York), were the source of much political gossip. The news of the country pa.s.sed 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 a.s.semblies, whether the holding of a.s.sizes or on State visits, were occasions for the dissemination of news. The ordinary citizen gathered news and information also from the pulpit and from guild and parochial meetings, and from the bellman.

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 proprietors.h.i.+p, with which was combined hunting and soldiering, became clerks. The clerks in the royal service helped in the work of administration of national affairs. Tradesmen's sons of ability and opportunity succeeded in gaining good positions in this service. n.o.bles 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 statesmen 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 Westminster. The first printing press established in York was set up in 1509.

Nevertheless the general state of education and scholars.h.i.+p 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 form of study were nearly dried up. The Greek cla.s.sics were entirely lost. Even the few Latin cla.s.sics that the mediaevals possessed, they did not understand aright. To Virgil's aeneid 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 and conformity, there were forces of revolt at work, probing, acc.u.mulating knowledge and experience, perhaps unconsciously, for the day of liberation and change. The Bible was not yet popularly available. Wiclif had been a pioneer in the work 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 Coleridge 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 discovery of a ma.n.u.script became the subject of an emba.s.sy: Erasmus read by moonlight because he could not afford a torch, and begged a penny, not for the love of charity, 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 cla.s.sical texts and a few meagre vocabularies with etymologies of mediaeval scholars.h.i.+p. In 1491 Grocyn began to teach Greek at Oxford. In 1499 Erasmus first visited England. Referring to his visit to this country in 1505-6 he wrote: "There are in London five or six 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARCHERY.]

F. 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 amus.e.m.e.nts. 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 of Corpus Christi (inst.i.tuted 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 services and preaching, the mediaeval drama owed its origin mainly to the Church which maintained 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, Wakefield, 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.

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 s.h.i.+pwrights produced the Building of the Ark, the Fishers and Mariners " Noah and the Flood, the Spicers " " Annunciation, the Tilers " " Birth of Christ, the Goldsmiths " " Adoration, the Vintners " " Wedding in Cana, the Skinners " " entry into Jerusalem, the Baxters " " Last 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 Last 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 n.o.bles. 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 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 performances of pageants, as at fairs, the city was filled with a boisterous mult.i.tude 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 indulgences 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 s.p.a.ces, others main streets. The stages, which were the work of citizen workmen, were of three storeys, the central and princ.i.p.al one, the stage proper, representing 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 tipper 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! 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 a.s.sembly, preparatory to the beginning of the performances {original had "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 Low Petergate, and in Pavement, which was one of the city market squares.

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, coa.r.s.e, popular plays, done by strolling 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 service.

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 "b.u.t.ts," where men practised archery, were outside the city walls.

G. CLa.s.sES