Archaeological evidence suggests that the coming of the Danes
stimulated significant growth in the city and its economy. The Danes
preferred to settle around centres where their armies had their
headquarters. By early twelfth century settlement had spread across
the other side of the Ouse, and ships from Germany and Ireland were
visiting it, although growing problems with river navigation, the growth
in size of ships, and the development of a harbour at Hull gradually
made York less attractive to sea-going vessels.
From Roman times York was one of the north's main population centres.
By the thirteenth century it was drawing immigrants from far afield
in Yorkshire and from the Midlands, as well as a few from Scotland,
France, Lombary, and Flanders. The city was an important consumer
market itself, as well as the major redistribution point for goods
destined for the northern regions. During the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries it was being visited by merchants from Italy, Germany,
Flanders, and France, and there is also evidence of trade with
Ireland and Scotland. The bulk of trade was probably directed at
the Low Countries, however, with grain, hides, and wool prominent
among exports. A community of fishmongers is early in evidence, while
wine merchants are also seen in the twelfth century.
Most local marketplaces are assumed to have been in the section of
the city referred to by Domesday as "marketshire". Two were specifically
mentioned at that time: the butchers' market,
and a general provisioning market in the Pavement (which was also the
location for public proclamations and punishments – the pillory was
located there). The Pavement's market was probably held on a Sunday,
which appears to have been the main market day of the city until about
1322, when Sunday was prohibited for sale of most goods; the market day
thereafter varied according to which market was being held. In the
previous century we start hearing of the
Thursday Market, which eventually became
the principal market of the city. There were other specialized markets
further afield, such as one for fish caught at sea, held on
Foss Bridge, and the cattle market
held on Toft Green (at least, by the fifteenth century). The city
had annual fairs at Pentecost (late May/early June) and on 29 June,
which were held outside the walls on the site of the horse market.
Perhaps even more than most towns, York showed great concern to keep its
lifelines – roads and river – open to commerce. The maintenance of
the bridge over the Ouse was the rationale for the citizens obtaining
a grant of new revenues from the king in 1392 (lands in mortmain),
while keeping the Ouse clear of obstacles – notably fish-garths – led
to an expensive lawsuit against
St. Mary's Abbey in the fifteenth
century. Similarly, attempts by the lords of the
honour
of Knaresborough to impose tolls on river traffic at Boroughbridge
met with resistance from York. York might be considered a port;
for a brief period (1337, 1339) it was even one of the official
collection points of the national wool custom. Its quayside stretched
along both sides of the Ouse between the bridge and the Franciscan
friary. However, it was too far upriver for most sea-going vessels.
It was necessary to ship goods to some point downriver, such as Selby,
and transfer them to larger ships that would continue on to the Humber.
By the end of the thirteenth century, corn was being ferried from York
to Hull, for transfer to ships bound for the Low Countries; from the
1340s, Hull was generally considered the port facilities for York's
international trade.
The king's grant in 1163 to the weavers of York of the right to form
a gild and to share with the weavers of other royal boroughs in
Yorkshire a monopoly on the manufacture of dyed and striped cloth
suggests the textile industry was important in the city at that
period. York seems to have been one of the leading cloth-making
towns in England in the late twelfth century. Yet, at the beginning
of the next century, the weavers were having difficulty paying
the £10 annual farm they paid to the king for their rights;
assuming this was a genuine expression of financial hardship, it
is perhaps attributable partly to competition from imported
Flemish cloth. By mid-century the weavers gild was badly in arrears
of its farm, and in the early fourteenth century was trying to
persuade the king to release them from the farm altogether.
The wool trade gradually gained importance for the city during
the thirteenth century, although much of it was in the hands of
foreign merchants. At the same time, the various leather industries
appear to have employed a greater number of local craftspeople;
the skinners, glovers, saddlers and hosiers had all attempted – this
time without royal authorization – to form gilds by 1180. During
the thirteenth century, York's society appears to have been relatively
egalitarian, in terms of wealth – there were very few residents
who were noticeably more wealthy than their fellows as a result
of extensive land-holding or participation in international commerce.
In the fourteenth century, York's economy was affected by the
Scottish wars, which both jeopardized
the peaceful conditions under
which commerce best flourished, yet also brought profit to those
citizens able to take advantage of opportunities for provisioning
the York-based national government and the royal armies, while
also providing employment for craftsmen who could help furnish
the army with weapons or clothing, or help with the rebuilding
of city defences. Provisions were being taken from York to
Berwick, while in 1316/17 and 1322 York merchants were active
in the Midlands and East Anglia buying supplies for the relocated
royal court. However, much of the international commerce at
York was in the hands of foreigners. Furthermore, the downside
of the stimulation to trade was that – with the relocation of
government bringing a wealthier clientele to York, prices rose,
due in part to shortage of goods (as many were diverted to the
army) and in part due to local tradesmen trying to take advantage
of the situation. The king, probably in consultation with city
authorities, issued a set of ordinances
in 1301 to regulate York's trade: ensure that good quality
foodstuffs were sold at fair prices, and combat illegal activities
aimed at forcing prices up.
At York as in other English towns, the growing wool trade brought
fortunes for a few. In the 1330s and '40s a group of England's
leading wool-merchants were among the citizenry and the city
remained an important source of wool exports throughout the century.
The textile industry also revived and came to be helped, as the
century wore on, by the growing numbers of Hanseatic merchants
taking English cloth to northern markets. Consequently, the city
attracted relatively high numbers of immigrants in this period,
about one-sixth of them in occupations related to the cloth industry.
The weavers' gild revived to the point where it was able to purchase
royal confirmations of its ancient privileges in 1346 and 1377, and
by the end of the century there were 51 master weavers operating
in the city. The influx of immigrants in turn strengthened the
revenue base of local government. But York's merchants were not
reliant solely on the wool and cloth trades, even though it tended
to be merchants active in the cloth trades who were most prominent
among the political elite. They were also, for example, taking grain
to London, wine to Carlisle, and importing iron from Spain, oil,
figs, raisins and wine from Portugal, herring, timber, furs, iron
and ashes from the Baltic and Iceland. In the last part of the
century, when much of the country was experiencing an economic
decline, York was probably at the peak of its medieval prosperity.
However, the seeds of reversal had already been sewn. The activity
of Hanseatic merchants in York was not wholly welcome; although
it stimulated the local economy, it also made it difficult for
York's own merchants to capture or maintain a share in international
trade. Whereas earlier kings had provided encouragement and incentives
for foreign merchants to be active in England, from the late fourteenth
century there was a trend towards protectionism, both at the national
level (e.g. the imposition of special taxes on merchants of the Hanse)
and at the local level. At York efforts were made to restrict the
types of goods foreigners could deal in, or impose restrictions on
those with whom foreigners could do business.
Retaliatory measures were ordered by the German authorities. After
rivalry turned violent in 1385, leading the authorities in each
country to seize the commercial goods of merchants of the rival
country, the king appointed two ambassadors – one a York citizen,
the other a Londoner – to present complaints and demands for
compensation before the German authorities; the complainants were
merchants from a number of cities involved in the northern trade,
but York's merchants were the most numerous among this group (although
Lynn's merchants were claiming a larger sum of money). The dispute
was patched up with a treaty, but resentment, hostility, and
ill-treatment of foreign merchants (with reprisals by the other side)
grew. While diversification continued to be a feature of York's
international commerce, the northern trade was becoming increasingly
important to its merchants. Consequently, intensification of
political troubles between England and the Hanse during the fifteenth
century had adverse effects on York's economy, by creating obstacles
to the North Sea and Baltic trade.
A second factor in economic decline in the fifteenth century was
competition from cloth producers in rural areas of the West Riding.
York's weavers used this as leverage to persuade the king to allow
them, in 1400, to levy charges on country weavers as a contribution
towards the annual farm the gild paid for its privileges. Rural
competition took its toll particularly on the broadcloth industry
(as well as on the leather trades); the city's producers of worsteds
and small cloths managed to hold their own. Fulling was another part
of the industry in which rural competition was strong. The city
authorities tried protectionist measures, ordering that no citizen
have cloth woven or fulled outside York, nor buy wool in or near York
unless he planned to have it made into cloth in the city. By the close
of the Middle Ages, York's weavers' gild was in sufficient difficulty
that it was able to convince the king to reduce its farm by half.
Evidence is conflicting on quite how much impact the declining
economy had. On the one hand, depopulation is evidenced by vacant
or ruinous houses and dropping property values; on the other, the
financing of church rebuilding in the fifteenth century argues for
continued private prosperity. Doubtless the fortunes of some
declined, while others continued to get by – perhaps in part
shifting their financial strategy to invest in extra-urban land
(ultimately leading some families out of the city to join the
rural gentry). It was more likely the city government that were
worst hit, as its traditional sources of revenue – such as rents
and tolls – fell, while its expenditures continued to grow in the
demanding political environment of the fifteenth century, as well
as the growth of public ceremony, including the mounting of the pageants
of the famous York Mystery Play. By the end of the Middle Ages, York had
declined to the point that it was no longer one of the country's top
ten towns.
History of
medieval York
