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
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