Life in a Mediæval City | Page 7

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.
[Illustration: BISHOP AND CANONS. From Richard II.'s "Book of
Hours."]
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