Source: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/city-of-york/pp122-135
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 18:51:14+00:00

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The struggle to pay, or to gain remission of the subsidies and the fee-farm became particularly acute during the mid-Tudor period. The fee-farm had been alienated by Edward II to William Roos, (fn. 7) whose descendant the Earl of Rutland was between 1527 and 1528 vigorously suing in the Exchequer for its full payment, (fn. 8) though for many years the city had been allowed to compound by a payment of only 20 marks. (fn. 9) The common clerk vainly approached Wolsey to obtain a remission of this and other charges, (fn. 10) while the desperate mayor spoke of surrendering the liberties of the city into the king's hands. (fn. 11) Already in 1526 the city chamber lay in great debt and the servants of the mace had been reduced to four, the mayor being forbidden to engage more without the consent of the whole council. (fn. 12) A memorandum of 1528 (fn. 13) blames the financial embarrassment of the corporation upon the fee-farm, the recorder's fees, the diminution of tolls, and the upkeep of chantries with decayed endowments. The writer asserts that the common chamber has an annual deficit of £85, of which £50 is due to these chantry payments. These latter the corporation restricted or stopped in 1530. (fn. 14) Two years later a citizen was urged to avoid public office for a year by lending the chamber £20, later reduced to £10, while at the same time one of the last year's sheriffs was gaoled pending the due settlement of his accounts. (fn. 15) Between 1533 and 1535 Cromwell found time to study the problem of increasing the wealth of the city. (fn. 16) In 1536 common council suggested a reduction of the mayor's household expenses from £50 to £20, this to be achieved by ceasing the banquets traditionally held for the judges and aldermen, omitting the official entertainment on Corpus Christi Day, and by reducing the common clerk's wages from £5 to £4. (fn. 17) Such were the natural suggestions of the unprivileged.
The relaxation of this particular crisis is marked by the parliamentary Act secured by York in 1536. (fn. 18) Its preamble provides a revealing account of the problem. Should the citizens be constrained to meet the full £100 demanded by Rutland, together with other charges, they would rather desert the city and leave it desolate in the king's hands. Besides the Rutland payment, they owed annuities of £35 14s. to the dean and canons of St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, of £7 12s. to Sir William Fairfax, and of £9 2s. to Lord Darcy; £15 yearly in Exchequer fees and £42 for the maintenance of nine chantries and three obits, originally of private foundation but now with endowments consumed and lost. (fn. 19) Besides all this, continues the Act, the city must maintain its officers, find 100 armed men in war-time and maintain four great stone bridges and the walls, amounting yearly to £400. On the credit side, the common lands yielded only £40 and other revenues not much over £100, leaving an annual deficit of at least £300. When Richard III had released the fee-farm, tolls worth between £140 and £160 had been rescinded; yet they had not been restored with the cancellation of his grant. By the mediation of Lord Chancellor Audley and Cromwell, the Earl of Rutland had now consented to remit £60 of his £100, the rest to be paid him in half-yearly portions. It was now enacted that the corporation should also be released from maintenance of the chantries and enjoy any of their properties remaining. The annuity of St. Stephen's was to be reduced by £5 14s. and that to Lord Darcy cancelled.
It was said in 1563 that some crafts, awarded important electoral functions under the charter of 1517, had meanwhile fallen into such decay that their powers should now be transferred to others. (fn. 62) This shift in relative prosperity has been linked by modern writers with a tendency shown by certain guilds to unite in hard times, in order to pool their pageant expenses or to share the same team of searchers. It seems easily possible, however, to exaggerate this co-operative spirit. The union of the woollen weavers with the linen weavers in 1549 (fn. 63) must be regarded merely as a re-union, since only in 1518 had they severed their former connexion. (fn. 64) That of the carpenters and joiners in 1530 seems concerned purely with precedence and pageants; (fn. 65) the two went on quarrelling and were still maintaining separate searchers between 1554 and 1557. (fn. 66) While the blacksmiths and the bladesmiths arranged to share their pageant funds and to co-operate in searching, they also maintained separate searchers. (fn. 67) The painters and the pinners, two poor crafts, united in 1561 merely for pageant purposes. (fn. 68) And while the 'decayed' drapers appear as an integral part of the tailors' guild in 1551, (fn. 69) the arrangement was not a Tudor development, for they display a de facto unity before 1492. (fn. 70) As for the more important union of 1591 between the haberdashers, feltmakers, and cappers, this can scarcely be quoted as a union enforced by poverty, because the haberdashers and feltmakers were both flourishing trades at this date. (fn. 71) Again, some guilds show contrary and fissiparous tendencies, as with the weavers in 1528 and with the brickmakers, who in 1592 desired to break away from the tilemakers. (fn. 72) All these movements reveal very little concerning the rise and fall of the various crafts. A rough and ready index to their fluctuations emerges, however, from a study of the Freemen's Rolls. An informative comparison may be made between the decades 1509-18 and 1594-1603. (fn. 73) In the first of these decades the 529 new freemen represent 100 trades and crafts; in the last Elizabethan decade 737 represent only 80 trades and crafts. A good many trades in the first list have disappeared from the second for obvious reasons, such as those of the bellmakers, bowyers, carvers, fullers, printers, (fn. 74) text-writers, and vestment-makers. In both lists tailors are most numerous, followed by merchants. The continued decline of the textile group of trades finds striking confirmation. In 1509-18 the entries for this group —weavers, dyers, fullers, tapiters and the like—together number only 55. Yet by 1594 a further decline to 28 has taken place: of these, 10 are linen-weavers, 1 a woollenweaver, 2 fustian-weavers, and 2 silk-weavers. Most catastrophically the tapiters fall from 24 entries in 1509-18 to only 6 in 1594-1603.
Nevertheless the plight of the textile group does not typify the whole field of trades. Just as remarkable is the increase of entry into the garment group. Between the two decades tailors rise from 35 to 73, glovers from 11 to 24, haberdashers very strikingly from 2 to 29. While cappers and hatters almost vanish from the lists, feltmakers take their place, rising from nil to 18. Milliners and embroiderers, unrepresented in the first list, show 6 entries each in the second. As for the cordwainers, who may be numbered with this group, they increase markedly from 14 to 50. The total entry for the garment group numbers 85 in 1509-18 and no less than 224 in 1594-1603. This may indicate a major change in the city's pattern of employment; it also suggests that the garment industry had come to cater for a wider public than the relatively static population of York.
Apart from the spectacular increase in the number of inn-keepers, which will be noted in another context, (fn. 75) there occur no shifts so dramatic as those involving the textile and garment groups. Whatever the volume of trade, merchants may well have been more numerous in 1603 than in 1518, since the entry over the respective decades has increased from 35 to 68. The food and catering trades are naturally prominent in both periods, but the steep decline of fishers and fishmongers, 30 to 11, suggests the failure of Elizabethan legislation to check the decline of fish-eating occasioned by religious changes. At least one of York's most ancient industries continued to make a tolerable showing, since between these two decades, the entry of the tanners rose from 15 to 24. Altogether little seems left of the traditional spectacle of a general, continuous, and more or less uniform decline in the economic activities of York. Decline in some trades was counterbalanced, perhaps more than counter-balanced, by advances in others, and while the period 1509-58 may represent the continuance of an overall decline of economic life, the reign of Elizabeth I probably saw a measure of economic recovery, as well as some increase in population. It would indeed be a bold observer who felt able to assert that York was less wealthy and productive in 1603 than it had been in 1509.
At the same time the Freemen's Rolls confirm the evidence that York's exclusiveness and conservatism made her less and less attractive to outsiders. In 1509-18 only 85 of the 529 entrants took their freedom by patrimonial right, but by 1594-1603 no fewer than 278 out of 737 became freemen per patres. While the total number of freemen grew considerably under Elizabeth, the influx of new men, willing to 'buy their way in' remained static, while a larger sector of trade and industry came under the control of established York families. Elizabethan conditions apparently made it increasingly worth while for the son of a York freeman to stay at home and avail himself of the advantages of an easy entry to a trade. The greatly increased annual crop of these young men may also reflect in some degree that lower mortality amongst the inhabitants, which, on other grounds, has been attributed to the Elizabethan age.
That some measure of commercial decline had by the Tudor period supervened upon industrial decline can scarcely be doubted, yet the sources give a far clearer notion of its causes than of its extent. Something it owed to the process of silting which ruined many medieval ports. In 1546 the corporation ordered the merchants in each ward to send an able-bodied man 'to help for to clean the same, every ward one day'. (fn. 76) The next year the inhabitants of each ward received the command to clear the Ouse about the 'newarke' and elsewhere as needed, every person to send a labourer, or bear the charge of a labourer for a day. (fn. 77) Even if this last order was fulfilled, it can scarcely have accomplished more than a clearance of accretion along the banks. A more radical operation came under discussion in 1572 when James Cornyssh, shipwright, offered to 'cleanse' the Ouse at the necessary points and to make it 6 feet deep over the shoals (fn. 78) at low water. The corporation, moved to unwonted enthusiasm, promised him a £10 annuity for life and the freedom of the city, gratis, for himself and his three sons if he could do it. Cornyssh was sent along with a carpenter to find timber for making a 'gabard' (barge), a drag, and other 'instruments'. (fn. 79) This annuity does not appear to have been paid; the equipment envisaged seems unlikely to have clinched the issue.
It has been customary to think too much about cloth in connexion with the York trade of this period. In 1511 the Adventurers wrote categorically that 'lead is our most principal commodity', (fn. 124) while the corporation itself mentioned in 1520 the enormous rise of lead prices and stated unequivocally that lead was the greatest commodity they had for the support of the 'poor city'. (fn. 125) Innumerable subsequent references in the civic archives and elsewhere (fn. 126) support this suggestion, and it would be unreasonable to assume that the dissolution of the monasteries exerted more than minor effects upon an already booming trade. When in 1552 the government rightly restrained the export of this vital commodity, the merchants of York and Hull had six ships ready to sail to Antwerp, three to Bordeaux, and one to Danzig. Altogether they carried 401 fothers of lead, valued at the then enormous sum of £3,809 10s. (fn. 127) This may have been an exceptional shipment calculated to beat the threatened embargo, yet it remains significant that such a large quantity could be assembled at one time. Relaxations were thereafter sparingly granted. The city was allowed in November 1556, for example, to export 200 fothers, provided the lead were 'of the growth' of Yorkshire and Hallamshire. (fn. 128) In 1559 a similar licence was obtained, only to be revoked by the Lord Treasurer in April 1560, 'because there is so little lead within the realm'. (fn. 129) Inside nearly two years, 21 January 1561 to 8 December 1562, only 204 fothers were shipped and, though references to the trade continue, its place in the structure of York commerce had greatly diminished.
That the pauper problem occupies so much of the Tudor House Books may only in part be ascribed to the foregoing processes of economic decline. It is linked with the national and international causes of pauperism; it certainly involves not merely the indigenous unemployed, (fn. 132) but the immigration of vagrants, attracted to York as to other large towns by the prospect of alms and easy money.
1. York Civ. Rec. ii. 14-15; similar phraseology was used to the archbishop in 1488: ibid. 36.
4. Ibid. iii. 75, 105, 109-10, 129, 137, 141, &c.; for the parallel 'decay' of Lincoln: J. W. F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, 19 sqq.
5. Remission was accepted as normal in 1532: York Civ. Rec. iii. 145.
6. Trans. R.H.S. 5th ser. vi gives tables from the rolls of 1523-7.
7. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 32: Hill, Tudor and Stuart Linc. 26 sqq.
8. York Civ. Rec. iii. 110, 113.
9. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 32.
10. York Civ. Rec. iii. 110.
13. L. & P. Hen. VIII, Add. vol. i (1), 209-10.
14. York Civ. Rec. iii. 129-30.
16. L. & P. Hen. VIII, vi, p. 389; viii, p. 305; ix, p. 237.
17. York Civ. Rec. iii. 147-9.
18. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 32; the dissolution of chantries under this Act is fully discussed in Y.A.J. xxxvi. 164 sqq.; see p. 143.
19. A distinct exaggeration; property worth 30s. 8d. per annum belonging to one of the chantries was in 1546 appropriated to the Chamber; when the national dissolution was threatened, the corporation was careful to get a copy of the Act to prove its title: Y.A.J. xxxvi. 166, n. 1, 167.
20. York Civ. Rec. v. 89, prints the commission; Acts of P.C. 1552-4, 287; the city had previously petitioned for the reduction of two 15ths and 10ths.
21. York Civ. Rec. v. 90.
22. Ibid. 93, 97-98; for the plea of 1558: ibid. 172.
29. York Civ. Rec. vi. 66.
30. Ibid. iv. 20; the previous chamberlains had also contributed various amounts: ibid. 18.
32. Ibid. vi. 43; they except only the bars, the buildings on Ouse Bridge and Foss Bridge, the Common Hall with its houses, and the common moats, pastures, and grounds; for alienations of city lands: York Corp. Rec. E/67.
33. York Civ. Rec. vi. 130, 136; vii. 57.
35. Figures in H. Heaton, Yorks. Wool. Worst. Ind. 60.
36. Cal. Pat. 1476–85, 135.
37. L. & P. Hen. VIII, i, p. 475.
38. Cal. Pat. 1547–9, 101.
39. The grant of 1558 exonerated them from arrears since the beginning of Mary's reign: Cal. Pat. 1557–8, 309.
40. York Civ. Rec. vi. 13.
42. L. & P. Hen. VIII, iv(2), p. 1713.
43. York Civ. Rec. vi. 17.
44. 35 Hen. VIII, c. 17.
45. York Civ. Rec. v. 23; there were other objections to the great number of malt-kilns in York; Richard Layton told Cromwell in 1540 that the demand for malt played into the hands of corn regraters and also caused every idle knave in York to get an alehouse, so impairing honest trade: L. & P. Hen. VIII, xv, p. 160.
46. York Civ. Rec. v. 24-25.
50. York Civ. Rec. vi. 13.
51. Ibid. 133; the resolution as passed gave the mayor and aldermen discretion to mitigate the fees of craftsmen specially necessary and profitable to the city.
54. For an example of 1592: V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 450.
55. York Civ. Rec. iii. 18.
57. Heaton, Yorks. Wool. Worst. Ind. 51.
58. 34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c. 10.
59. A clause allows anyone to make coverlets for his own household or for the lord of whom he is tenant.
60. York Civ. Rec. iv. 151, 165; v. 134.
61. Heaton, Yorks. Wool. Worst. Ind. 57, cites Peck's 'Certificate of New Draperies in the County of York' (1595), SP 12/252/2; for the decline in the number of tapiters see p. 127.
63. York Civ. Rec. v. 9.
66. Ibid. v. 100, 163.
72. Davies, Walks Through York, 138.
73. York Freemen, i. 233-41; ii. 36-48.
76. York Civ. Rec. iv. 147.
78. York Civ. Rec. vii. 20, reads 'shawds' and suggests 'shards', gaps in a river bank; an 'l' seems, however, intended and 'shawl' is the normal northern spelling for shoal.
80. For a useful account: Knight, Hist. York, 342-6, 383-4.
82. York Civ. Rec. iii. 155-62.
84. York Merch. Adv. 244.
85. York Civ. Rec. iv. 120.
87. York Merch. Adv. 119-21.
88. York Civ. Rec. iii. 146; for the agreement of 1532 between the York Merch. Advent. and Hull over gaugemoney: York Merch. Adv. 134.
89. York Civ. Rec. iv. 97.
96. Hull Corp. Rec. Bench Book, iv, f. 194.
97. Hull Corp. Rec. Bench Book, iv, ff. 194-196b; this is followed by a schedule of rates for the weighing and housing of York goods at Hull: ff. 196b-197; for a copy with the York seal attached: Hull Corp. Rec. D. 682; for another copy: York Corp. Rec. K/2.
98. York Civ. Rec. viii. 162-3.
99. As in 1586: Reid, King's Counc. in North, 308; and in 1622: Hull Corp. Rec. D. 682; L. 182A, 183-4, 189-91.
100. Even Hull was capable of using the argument of its own 'decay' to get help with naval contributions: Acts of P.C. 1588, 396.
101. Acts of P.C. 1558-9, 45-46; for the long resistance of York against contribution: ibid. 1588, 46, 282, 316, 394-5.
103. York Merch. Adv. 201.
104. York Civ. Rec. iii. 92.
108. York Corp. Rec. A/41; G/6.
109. York Civ. Rec. viii. 139.
110. Ibid. iii, pp. vi-vii, 71, 135-6.
112. Ibid. 78-79; York Merch. Adv. 127-8.
113. York Merch. Adv. 121-2.
120. Acts and Ordinances of Eastland Co. ed. M. Sellers (Camd. Soc. 3rd ser. xi), pp. ix sqq.
121. York Merch. Adv. 154 sqq.
122. For import of Spanish iron in 1522: York Civ. Rec. iii. 77.
123. York Merch. Adv. 155-6; wine also occurs elsewhere: ibid. 140; York Civ. Rec. iii. 132; judging from frequent price regulations, a good deal was sold and consumed in the city itself.
124. York Merch. Adv. 125.
125. York Civ. Rec. iii. 71-72.
126. Note especially the Star Chamber case brought by the Yorks. lead-miners against the York merchants: Yorks Star Ch. Proc. ii (Y.A.S. Rec. Ser. xlv), 73-74; also that between John Gresham and York citizens: ibid. i (Y.A.S. Rec. Ser. xli), 151-5.
127. The doc. is undated but the names confirm 1552, not 1536 as suggested in York Merch. Adv. 135; this valuation is at £9 10s. a fother; in 1520 it is said to have lately risen from 5 marks to £4 6s. a fother: York Civ. Rec. iii. 72.
129. York Merch. Adv. 161-2; for an account of lead weighed at the common crane and other particulars of the trade c. 1560: York Corp. Rec. K/3; for an acct. of 1565-6: ibid. E/109.
130. L. & P. Hen. VIII, ix, p. 148; this passage reflects incidentally upon the reliability of subsidy assessments.
131. Ibid. xv, p. 160.
132. An unnamed correspondent of Cromwell in 1534 blames the crime and disorder in York upon 'the idleness of the people' springing from economic decline: ibid. vii, p. 617.
133. Holy Trinity, with a gross annual value of £196 at the Dissolution, was much the largest: St. Andrew's and St. Clement's show only £57 each; the four friaries were all poor, and except for the Greyfriars (with a warden, 15 friars, and 5 novices) very small; for precise refs. and figs.: V.C.H. Yorks. iii, passim; G. Lawton, The Relig. Houses of Yorks. passim.
134. V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 343 sqq.
136. Yorks. Schs. i (Y.A.S. Rec. Ser. xxvii), 57-58.
137. V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 348.
138. L. & P. Hen. VIII, xiv(2), p. 227; there had been 60 cremets in 1535 and 127 in 1462.
139. E. Lipson, Econ. Hist. Eng. iii. 411 sqq.
140. York Civ. Rec. iii. 46.
144. Ibid. iv. 30; for an example of alms for the sick poor early in 1539: ibid. 37.
146. Ibid. 64; a salary, as well as livery, is provided them in 1553: ibid. v. 115.
151. City total in 1550: £3 7s. 6d.; in 1551: £4 6s. 4d.; in 1561: £3 10s. 7d.; Bootham in 1561: £1 6s. 6d.; in 1569: 13s. 10d.
155. For examples: ibid. vii. 146, viii. 53-54, 121, 141, 150, 162; in 1582 the schoolmaster Stockdale defaulted saying that free schools ought not to pay: ibid. viii. 54; for later cases: V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 468.
156. York Civ. Rec. vi. 111; the weekly scale ranged from 8d. for an alderman to 3d. for a bridgemaster.
159. Ibid. vii. 162; city deputations solicited contributions from the archbishop and cathedral clergy in 1574: ibid. 87, 94.
161. Ibid. 150; prohibitions appear later, e.g. in 1587: ibid. viii. 134.
163. Ibid. 146, 165; for the request of the Ecclesiastical Commission to expel a notorious vagrant in 1579: ibid. viii. 12-13.
165. For a further account with references: V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 466-7.
166. York Civ. Rec. vii. 90-91.
167. For references: V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 468; for the contract of 1597 for the making of fustians by the poor: ibid. 469.
168. York Civ. Rec. vii. 86; for contemporary accounts respecting the maintenance of the poor at these hospitals: York Corp. Rec. C/104-5; E/69.
169. For a list of the names and sums: York Civ. Rec. vii. 92-93; E.H.R. ix. 287; those 'living in' also received small weekly sums in cash.
170. York Civ. Rec. viii. 160.
171. For one of these: ibid. 157-9; some of its suggestions were subsequently adopted, e.g. the provision of new stocks: ibid. 160.
172. Drake, Ebor. 374; York Corp. Rec. E/22(e), 23.
173. York Civ. Rec. v. 25-26.
177. For examples: V.C.H. Yorks. iii. 468.

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