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, [a]pilgrim]); 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]