Life in a Mediæval City

Life in a Mediæval City

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Title: Life in a Mediæval City Illustrated by York in the XVth Century
Author: Edwin Benson

Release Date: February 24, 2006 [eBook #17848]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LIFE IN A MEDIÆVAL CITY
Illustrated by York in the XVth Century
by
EDWIN BENSON, B.A.
With Eight Illustrations

London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge New York: The
MacMillan Co. 1920

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER II

IMPORTANT FACTORS AFFECTING THE HISTORY OF YORK
(a) Geographical position; (b) Military value of its position; (c)
Political importance
CHAPTER III
APPEARANCE
A. General appearance
Church, State, people; outside the city; population; area-divisions
B. Streets
Highways, traffic, open-spaces; Ouse Bridge
C. Buildings
Dwelling-houses, shops, inns; civic buildings (guildhalls); fortifications
(castle, city walls, bars); religious buildings (Minster; St. William's
College; St. Mary's Abbey; Friaries; St. Clement's Nunnery; Hospitals;
Parish Churches)
D. York as a Port
CHAPTER IV
LIFE
A. Civic Life
City government, the parishes; extra municipal rights; a royal city;
charter; sheriffs; mayor; city councils; civic spirit; city and trade rule;
royal government; punishments; sanctuary
B. Parliamentary and National Life
Leasing of royal power; Parliament; visits of Henry IV.; Wars of Roses;

Duke of Gloucester; judges of assize; royal larder
C. Business Life
Middle class of merchant employers; Jews and Italians; professions;
wool trade; trade-guilds; their government; strangers; phases of guild
life; merchants; apprentices; working hours; trades; artist craftsmen;
markets and fairs; overseas trade; money; extracts from ordinances
D. Religious Life
The Church in the Middle Ages; the Church and daily life; merchants
and religion; the Church and education; work of hospitals; priests (at
Minster; parish churches; Archbishop); pluralism; religious orders;
monastic life; St. Mary's Abbey; Anchorites; other types of religious
(pardoner, palmer, pilgrim {original had "pligrim"}); Church services
E. Education
Higher education; grammar schools; elementary education; educational
welfare work; instruction; the ways in which the citizen got news and
information; vocations; literacy in fifteenth century; mediæval learning;
Revival of Learning
F. Entertainments
Holidays, travelling; mediæval plays; York plays; Corpus Christi Day
Processions; production of pageants; other forms of entertainment;
archery
G. Classes
Fashions and dress; nobles; religious; townspeople; women; the
freemen; soldiers; men in royal service; lepers; visitors (kings, lords,
commoners; judges; sailors) serfs
CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION
York a city of destruction and a "storehouse of the past"

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
YORK IN THE XVTH CENTURY (From a drawing by E. Ridsdale
Tate)
COOKING WITH THE SPIT (From the Louttrell Psalter)
BISHOP AND CANONS (From Richard II.'s "Book of Hours")
KNIGHTS DOING PENANCE AT A SHRINE (From a XVth Century
MS.)
ADMINISTRATION OF HOLY COMMUNION WITH HOUSEL
CLOTH (From a XIVth Century MS.)
SEMI-CHOIR OF FRANCISCANS (From a XVth Century MS.)
ARCHERY (From the Louttrell Psalter)
AN ABBOT
[Illustration: YORK IN THE XVTH CENTURY FROM A DRAWING
BY E. RIDSDALE TATE]

A MEDIÆVAL CITY
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 naïve spirit appears in their formal literature, as
in Chaucer's account of the Canterbury pilgrims, in their decorated
religious manuscripts, 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 mediæval buildings are