Life in a mediæval city

by Edwin Benson

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 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 [ToC]

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 [a]timber.] 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 in towns generally from thus corrupting and infecting the air is dated 1388. The many visits of distinguished people and public processions always conferred an incidental boon on the city, for one of the essentials of preparation was giving the main streets a good cleaning. There is no wonder that plagues perpetually harassed the people of mediæval times and reduced the population miserably. The plague never disappeared till towns were largely rebuilt on a more commodious scale in the next great building era, which began in 1666 in London and in the early years of the eighteenth century elsewhere. No advance was made in sanitation till the Victorian Age, when town sanitation was completely revolutionised and, for the first time, efficiently organised.