York Guides

Life and Industry

It would be unreal to see the period only in terms of party strife. Some places and people remained almost untouched. This was so with the monasteries, in which Yorkshire was rich: great houses such as Fountains and Bolton, Jervaulx and Rievaulx, Kirkstall and Whitby, and many smaller houses of monks and nuns. Between them, they owned one-third of the land in Yorkshire. The monastery was a counterpoise to the castle; an influence for peace and stability. When the great lords were mustering their followers, monastic tenants stayed at home. The great building era was over. The spiritual fire may have burnt low, but materially the monastic estates were prosperous communities of producers, with a surplus to offer to the outside world.

Monastic enterprise was laying the foundations of the metal industries. Lead was in demand for roofing monasteries, churches and castles. Fountains and Byland worked the lead mines of Nidderdale, with furnaces in forest clearings where there was plentiful wood for smelting. Bolton worked those at Appletreewick. Jervaulx owned lead and iron mines and coal pits above Swaledale, Rievaulx lead mines in Bilsdale. Recent excavation has uncovered the monastic forge and foundry at Kirkstall, Leeds.

The monks had been pioneers in taming the wild moor¬lands of the Pennines and North-west. Now they were in full operation as great sheep ranches. The working unit was the grange, which served as a collecting centre for wool, fells and metals. Heavy goods were usually sent by river to York, but the monasteries kept the tracks and bridges between their granges in good repair.

Wool was exported overseas by way of Hull. York, Beverley and Ripon were old-established centres of cloth-making, but the industry was strictly regulated in the supposed interests of quality by the richer master-clothiers, who dis¬couraged newcomers. The consequence was that the older centres were losing ground to the small market towns of the West Riding such as Wakefield and Halifax, where regulation was less strict. The clothiers bought wool from lay as well as monastic producers, and put it out to be spun, woven and dyed by country craftsmen working in their own homes.

There was a plentiful supply of water for washing and dyeing in the small hillside streams. The cloth was the coarser "worsted", which could not be compared in quality with the fine woollen cloth of the Cotswolds, and the industry was on a much smaller scale. Already the beginnings of factory industry were appearing in primitive fullingmills worked by water-power, where a number of workers might be employed. When war broke out, clothiers and craftsmen kept out of the fighting. They may even have profited by it, for much cloth was needed for "jackets" and other warlike equipment.

The prosperity of the wool industry can be measured by the fine churches built by merchants and clothiers. There is nothing in the West Riding to compare with the glorious perpendicular work of Cotswold churches like Cirencester and Northleach, or East Anglian churches like Cawston and Lavenham. But the rebuilding of Bradford's parish church coincides with the gradual emergence of the little town as a centre of clothmaking. The work began in 1358 and went on slowly for a hundred years. It was completed just at the out¬break of the war, and nothing more was done until the troubles were over. Then with increasing prosperity, the tower was added between 1493 and 1508. It is one of a number of churches of which it was said that it was "founded on wool".

All cities tried to keep out of the struggle, and York was no exception. Her walls and bars had been completed in the previous century and she was strong enough to defy attack. The city was "neutral" except when some local interest was affected. The execution of "Good" Archbishop Scrope in 1405 roused popular indignation, and he was informally recognised as a saint.

York was governed by a lord mayor, aldermen and council of twenty-four, a civic aristocracy from which the poorer citizens were excluded. In 1444, a fitting background for their deliberations was provided by the building of a fine new guildhall overlooking the Ouse. The great hall had a splendid timbered roof supported on pillars fashioned from enormous oaks. It was completely burnt out by an air-raid in 1942. On both sides of the river stretched the quays, and the river was spanned by Ousebridge with St. William's chapel, its central arches poised high to allow the passage of ships.

Merchants and craftsmen were organised in guilds for the regulation of trade and for religious and social purposes. The richest guild was that of the Mercers or Merchant Adventurers, who controlled the wholesale trade and tried without much success to turn Hull into a port dependent on York. Their fine hall was built in the fourteenth century. St. Anthony's Hall was built in 1446 by the guilds of carpenters and saddlers, and the Merchant Taylors' Hall about the same time. The Guild of Corpus Christi overrode craft and class divisions. One of its activities was to honour the festival of Corpus Christi by the performance of a cycle of plays telling the story of the Faith from the creation of the world to the day of Judgement.

The Minster was almost complete. The two western towers were finished while the war was in progress. The city had long been famous for glass-making and a good deal of glass had already been inserted. The glazing of the great east window was begun in 1406. The St. William window was completed in 1422 and the St. Cuthbert window in 1427. Most of the forty-one city churches were built before the fifteenth century. A few were rebuilt. It was an age more practical than spiritual. A characteristic rebuilding was that of All Saints Pavement, where a lantern tower was included to guide way¬farers on their way to the city. The glass in many churches belongs to this period. Some of the most interesting is in the church of All Saints North Street. One window illustrates Six Works of Mercy, and another "The Prykke of Conscience", a poem by the Yorkshireman, Richard Rolle of Hampole, telling the story of the last fifteen days of the world. The hammer-beam roof shows angels playing musical instruments.

The Shambles is unique as an almost wholly Medieval street and some houses in Stonegate and Coney Street date from the fifteenth century. The finest domestic building is St. William's College, which was begun in 1465 as a house for priests serving the Minster. It is a timbered structure with an inner courtyard. Under the overhang of the upper storey are figures representing the months of the year - ordinary people engaged in everyday tasks - sowing, reaping, digging and hawking - a reminder of the eternal round of springtime and harvest as a counterpoise to the passing blast of war.

Hull was the chief port for trade with Flanders and northern Europe, a town of seamen and ship-owners. Though Lancastrian in sympathy at first - the mayor of Hull was present at Towton - it was no more eager than York to allow either party within its walls. Both Henry IV and Edward IV landed on Humberside to pursue their claims to the throne, but they used the small unguarded port of Ravenspur, now lost beneath the sea. To its quays came ships bringing woad, weld and madder used in the dyeing of cloth, timber, tar and bowstaves from the Baltic, and glass for the use of the glass painters of York. They took away wool and fells and in¬creasing quantities of cloth. All wool exported from the country except from Tyneside had to be taken to the Staple at Calais, and the commercially-minded Edward IV earned the favour of the merchants of Hull by allowing them to export direct to Flanders and elsewhere.

Like York, Hull was governed by a merchant aristocracy. The focus of religious and guild life was the church of Holy Trinity, built in the previous century, when the Guild of Holy Trinity was formed for worship and the relief of members in distress. In 1457, an important change took place. Member¬ship was restricted to master mariners and pilots, the elite of the seafaring population. In 1461, a house was built as a meeting-place for members, with an almshouse adjoining. The Trinity Guild became responsible for the training of pilots and for maintaining buoys and beacons in the Humber, and opened a school for the children of mariners.

Its members presented the annual "Noah Play" in the streets of Hull. Trinity House was rebuilt in the eighteenth century on the old site, and its regulations provided a model for other seaport towns.

No other towns in Yorkshire could equal the importance of York or Hull, but they reflected on a smaller scale the same kind of interests and the same indifference to the war that went on outside. The old clothmaking centres of Beverley and Ripon, like York, were losing ground, largely on account of the over-regulation of industry by the crafts. Yet the craft guilds of Beverley were prosperous enough to undertake rebuilding the nave of St. Mary's church. Ripon had to face a serious disaster. In 1458, part of the Cathedral tower fell, wrecking the choir and south transept. The Archbishop promised indulgences to benefactors who contributed to its rebuilding and the canons gave up half their stipends for one year. In 1465 the building was sufficiently repaired to be in use again. The difficulty of grafting old and new can be seen in the architecture on the south side of the tower. This was the time when the Wakefield cycle of Mystery Plays were performed and committed to writing, and when the fine set of mural paintings were executed in Pickering church. Many small grammar schools were founded in towns not touched by the ancient cathedral schools - in Wakefield, Pontefract, Howden, Pickering, Pocklington, Acaster, Northallerton, Skipton and Long Preston. It is a testimony to the insecurity of the times that no major building of churches or houses took place, but away from the fighting, there was no break in the continuity of life. With the triumph of the Yorkists, the country began to settle down. But troubles were not yet over. Edward owed his throne to the earl of Warwick and the powerful Nevilles, but he was not prepared to let them have all their own way.

Warwick wanted an alliance with France and was on the point of arranging a match with a French princess when Edward suddenly married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a Lancastrian nobleman, with a host of greedy and ambitious relatives. Between them and the Nevilles a bitter feud de¬veloped. Edward, a keen businessman, followed this up by making a commercial treaty with Flanders, which pleased the merchants but gave offence to Warwick. Warwick found a tool in Edward's brother, George Duke of Clarence, and married him to the elder of his two daughters, joint heiresses to his vast estates.

The tension found a flash-point in Yorkshire in a series of small risings. Robin of Holderness and Robin of Redesdale, pseudonyms which covered the identity of Lancastrian gentlemen, called for the restoration of the Percies, and Lord Scrope declared against the Yorkists. Warwick did nothing to put them down. Edward marched north and reinstated the earl of Northumberland as a counterpoise to the Nevilles, but the Yorkshire situation was too much for him. In 1470, he fled to Flanders along with his youngest brother, Richard of Gloucester. Then Warwick took the amazing step of going over to the Lancastrians. He went to France and was re¬conciled to Queen Margaret, who had caused the death of his father and so many of his friends. His younger daughter Anne was married to her son, Prince Edward. King Henry, now nearly witless, was replaced on the throne. The "King¬maker's" triumph lasted only a few months. In March 1471, Edward landed at Ravenspur with Richard of Gloucester and 1,500 men. Hull and Beverley shut their gates against him, but he was welcomed at York. He hastened on to London, where he could count on support. Then he turned to face Warwick's forces.

The unstable Clarence deserted to his brother and in a fierce encounter at Barnet, the Kingmaker was defeated and killed. The victory was partly due to a stand made against heavy odds by the seventeen-year-old Richard. On the same day, Queen Margaret landed from France. At Tewkesbury, Edward, with Richard commanding the van, defeated the Lancastrian forces as completely as he had defeated Warwick. The young Prince was killed and the Queen was taken prisoner. At Edward's orders, King Henry was put to death. Henceforward, Yorkist rule was unquestioned.

Edward had at his disposal the vast property on which the Kingmaker's ascendency had been founded. The Beau-champ estates in the Midlands were promptly seized by Clarence, the husband of the elder daughter, whose treachery the king decided to overlook. Clarence was not satisfied. There were still the Neville estates in the north. It could plausibly be argued that Anne, the younger daughter, the widow of the Lancastrian prince, had forfeited her rights. Richard wanted to marry her. They had known each other as children at Middleham, and it seemed like a love affair. For a year, he was constantly on the move. His loyalty to Edward was unswerving, and Edward heaped offices - and duties - on him. As soon as he was free, he looked for Anne, but Clarence had taken steps to conceal her. One account says that eventually Richard found her "disguised as a kitchen-maid". Clarence then conceded that he might have the lady but not her lands, and Richard was prepared to agree.

The North was the most restless and difficult part of the kingdom. Edward wanted an able and trustworthy lieutenant, and his choice fell on Richard. He was appointed Warden of the West March against the Scots, steward of the Duchy of Lancaster beyond Trent, and custodian of the royal castles. Almost as an afterthought, the Neville lands were added, minus some small concessions to Clarence. Richard and Anne were married, hastily and without ceremony, and returned to make their home in Middleham. He was twenty, and she sixteen.