Magdalene in the Horse Fair, founded by Robert de Pickering, dean of York in 1330, for a master, two chaplains, and six lame and aged priests. This was united by Philip and Mary to the grammar school in connection with the minster, and its endowments belong at the present time to St. Peter's school, a very worthy use to put them to. There was also a hospital for lepers at St. Nicholas's on the Hull road. All the guilds, also, whether for trade or religious purposes, had small alms-houses attached to them, and at the gate of every religious house in the city there would be a daily distribution of gifts to the poor. At the Reformation all this came to an end. There can, I fear, be no doubt that these gifts had a tendency to pauperise the recipients, and when the monastery of St. Leonard's was suppressed a number of persons were turned out into the world with no habits of thrift and self-reliance. The authorities of the city endeavoured to keep the beggars under control by putting them under the charge of four head-men or captains, to whom they gave a frieze coat and a small salary every year. They had thus a kind of official stamp put upon them. In 1663, Thomas Bradley, when preaching in the minster before the Judges of Assize, complained of the crowd of beggars who thronged the streets of York, and appealed to the lord mayor to bring the system to an end. What was the result of his request we know not. But still, although harm was no doubt done by legalising begging, due justice must be done to the efforts made by the corporation through a long series of years to relieve poverty and sickness out of the funds of the city, and to encourage honest labour by having houses for

work, encouraging spinning, weaving, and other kindred occupations. But the destruction of St. Leonard's Hospital was a deadly injury to the just and always present requirements of the sick and maimed. The alms-houses belonging to the various trades in the city died away with the trades themselves, as incorporated bodies, and their places were only taken by little hospitals and alms-houses erected for a few aged and impoverished people. The healing of the body was not attended to in a professional way in any public institution from the abolition of St. Leonard's to the erection of the County Hospital between 1740 and 1750. This, together with the Dispensatory, which began in 1782, is an indescribable boon to the city and the vicinity, although it still does not possess so many beds for its patients, by one half, as were in use in St. Leonard's Hospital in the reign of Edward I.

PART III

THE MUNICIPALITY AND CITY

The old rulers of the City and the growth of municipal institutions--The Reeve and Mayor-Sheriffs and Chamberlains— Council Chamber and Guildhall - The Lord Mayor and his position- The Ainsty-Population-Walls of the City-The inhabitants-The trades-Public buildings-Bridges and river.

IN York, if anywhere, we might look for traces of Roman influence in its municipal constitution, but there is a complete absence of them. The Danes also have left little or no mark behind them. In the 'Domesday Survey' we are told that there were in York seven shires, inclusive of that of the Archbishop. The word 'shire' means a division. The ealdorman was an officer representing the king and the community, and the sheriff, or shire-reeve, was the king's deputy. The White Book of Southwell contains a remarkable letter from the chapter at York to their brethren at Southwell. The chapter state that their privileges were granted to them by Athelstan, and that in the year 1106, 'quum Osbertus fuit primum vicecomes Eboraci,' that officer disputed the rights of the cathedral. Archbishop Gerard thereupon made a formal complaint to the king, who appointed a commission of inquiry, which sat at York, and took the

verdict of a jury of twelve persons, which was against the sheriff. The last of the twelve was 6 Ulvet filius Fornonis hereditario jure lagaman civitatis' (i.e. lawman), who then also was reeve. From this interesting piece of evidence we seem to discover that, like Lincoln and Chester, York possessed a body of lawmen, probably twelve in number, that this office could be inherited, and that a lawman could hold at the same time the post of præpositus and be the head of the city. Bishop Stubbs remarks that such a town as York is, like London and Exeter, a collection of communities, based on the lordship, the township, the parish and the guild.' The lordship represented the king and the great territorial lords, such as the church and archbishop, and the monasteries; the township and parish were local jurisdictions, with privileges of their own, and common land; the guild made its appearance last of all. We must look upon it as the merchant-guild, a combination of citizens to regulate trade by by-laws and to advance its progress. The king's interest in the burgh was represented by a tax, called the Firma Burgi or Fee Farm Rent (1007. per annum in York, when fixed), which was at first collected by the reeve and bailiffs and was of an uncertain amount, until, at last, the burghers got it into their own hands and collected it for the Crown in accordance with strict rules. Whenever a burgh acquired the Firma Burgi, it became a commune. This tax must have been acquired by the burghers of York at a very early period. During the time of Henry I., in addition to the general commune of the burghers, a new commune sprang up in the Gilda Mercatoria, a combination of the merchants for the purposes of trade.

This, according to a confirmatory charter of John, was granted to the burghers by Henry I., and, in 1130, we have a notice of a remarkable gift of a hunting dog, of the value of 20s., being given to the king by Thomas of York, the son of Ulvet, that he may be alderman of the Merchants' Guild of the place. Thomas, therefore, was the son of the same Ulvet who, in 1106, was an hereditary lawman, as well as reeve of York for that time, and his son, who was most probably a lawman also by descent, now appears associating, or wishing to associate, with the ruling body the management of the trading community of the city.

A charter of privileges, by Archbishop Thurstan, to his town of Beverley, gives it a hans-hus, or guildhall, like that of York, so that the grant of Henry I. had not been inoperative. The charter of Henry I. to York was confirmed by Henry II. and John. The last-named king, by deed dated March 25, 1200, confirmed to the citizens their Merchant Guild and their houses in England and Normandy, and their lastage, as freely as they had them in the time of Henry his grandfather, and as they are specified in the charters of Henry his father and Richard his brother. When John granted this charter, York was still under the rule of a præpositus, or reeve; the claim which Drake makes to its having a mayor at an earlier period being quite unfounded. We learn from evidences preserved at Durham that whilst Robert Wallensis was sheriff of Yorkshire (1206-11), Gerard, the bell-founder, was præpositus or reeve of the city, and that William Fairfax was holding that office about the same time. In 1217 we find a mayor in the place of the præpositus, and, no doubt, there were