Life in a Mediæval City | Page 4

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