Source: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/city-of-york/pp155-159
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 14:48:28+00:00

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Only six books are certainly known to have been printed in York in the Tudor period. Hugo Goes printed a Directorium Sacerdotium in 1509, and two grammars at some unknown date. Ursyn Milner produced about 1514 two service-books of the York Use, their colophons showing that his press was in the minster yard. Two years later, working now in Blake Street, he printed an edition of Robert Whittington's important De Consinitate Grammatices. Later a stationer of French origin, John Gachet, published a series of York service-books printed for him in Rouen; he was naturalized in 1535 as a bookbinder of the city of York, (fn. 3) and his relatives appear at various later dates in the York records. All these activities were dominated by men of foreign antecedents who had to meet strong opposition from native stationers and bookbinders. The book trade itself was restricted by the decline in the demand for York service-books after the Henrican changes in religion; very little actual printing can in fact have taken place in York between 1520 and the final centralization of the craft in London by the Stationers' charter of 1557. Its revival at York was thenceforth delayed until the advent of the Civil War propaganda presses of Charles I.
Of the archbishops, Lee was an accomplished humanist; (fn. 11) Grindal wrote A Fruitful Dialogue on the sacrament of the altar; (fn. 12) Sandys published several sermons and minor theological works; (fn. 13) while Hutton, celebrated among Elizabethan preachers, published a sermon preached in 1579 before Lord President Huntingdon. (fn. 14) Amongst the pre bendaries, Thomas Cottesford was an eminent Protestant devotional writer, (fn. 15) Alban Langdale a Marian controversialist, (fn. 16) William Turner the great naturalist, (fn. 17) John Thornborough a political writer, (fn. 18) and Lawrence Nowell one of our ablest early AngloSaxon scholars. (fn. 19) Yet not one of these gifted men spent long in residence at York or can have made much direct contribution to the city's cultural life.
As elsewhere in contemporary Europe, pageantry in general and costume in particular occupied a prominent place in the minds of all orders of society. A man's substance was judged by the clothes his wife could afford to wear, and when in 1565 the Council in the North apportioned military taxation, it officially imposed a certain burden upon those whose wives wore jewellery or gowns of silk and velvet. (fn. 44) On the other hand, the Elizabethan zest for display did not as yet extend creatively to the plastic arts. The great Renaissance monuments in the minster derive from the Stuart period, while the characteristic late Tudor memorial is the modest little brass to Elizabeth Eynns (d. 1585), wife of a secretary to the Council in the North and sometime lady-in-waiting to the queen. Apart from the Huntingdon wing of the King's Manor, the idioms of the continental Renaissance are little represented in York art before 1603. Stonecarvers declined sharply in number, (fn. 45) while after the last windows of St. Michael-le-Belfrey (c. 1530), (fn. 46) glass-painting almost vanished until its rebirth with Henry Gyles at the end of the 17th century.
The social historian would be unwise to dwell too exclusively upon the picturesque aspects of life in the Tudor city. It was an age when moralists ceaselessly preached the virtues of industry and parsimony, when mastery in a craft remained difficult to attain, when the number of holidays diminished, when wages were not readily adjusted to the constant inflationary process. The journeyman worked in the winter from dawn to sunset, in the summer from 5 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m., with only 2½ hours for 'breakfast, dinner or drinking'. (fn. 54) And if official valuations of their goods bear any relation to realities, artisans and most tradesmen cannot have boasted more than a few poor sticks of furniture and very few of the domestic comforts taken for granted by all classes since Victorian times. (fn. 55) For more than two centuries after the death of Elizabeth I, the men and women of York had to accept a constant cycle of epidemics, a short life span, much unassuaged pain, and frequent bereavements. The harsh lot of the average townsman was far from originating with the rise of factories and industrial slums. In Tudor times it would indeed have been insupportable without that implicit religious confidence (fn. 56) which stood unshattered by the Reformation and which must be accepted as altogether essential to the vitality and cohesion of the urban community.
1. For full details of the York presses see E. G. Duff, Eng. Provincial Printers to 1557, 42 sqq.; see also R. Davies, Memoir York Press.
3. L. & P. Hen. VIII, viii, p. 305.
4. Test. Ebor. v. 78, 101, 289.
5. York Dioc. Regy. (St. Ant. Hall), Reg. Lee, f. 182.
7. Test. Ebor. v. 258 sqq.; note also the library of Robert Barra, prebendary of York and Southwell: ibid. v. 221.
8. Linc. Cath. Libr. MS. A. 6. 8, ff. 1-2, 28-30b., 7779; D.N.B. sub. Norton.
9. Short Title Cat. ed. A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, No. 17806; see P. Hughes, Reformation in Eng. i. 85.
10. The Pilgrimage of M. Robert Langton, ed. E. M. Blackie (1924).
11. D.N.B.; B.M. Cat. Print. Bks. s.v. Leeus.
12. Grindal's Remains (Parker Soc. 1843); see also C. H. Cooper, Athenae Cantab. i. 470-81.
14. Ibid.; Cooper, Ath. Cantab. ii. 421; Corresp. Matt. Hutton (Sur. Soc. 17).
15. D.N.B.; Cooper, Ath. Cantab. i. 140; C. H. Garrett, The Marian Exiles, 129.
16. D.N.B.; Cooper, Ath. Cantab. i. 509.
17. C. E. Raven, Eng. Naturalists from Neckham to Ray, 99; D.N.B.; Dickens, Lollards and Prots. 192-4.
18. D.N.B.; Le Neve, Fasti, ed. T. D. Hardy, iii. 126.
19. D.N.B.; Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 169; Cooper, Ath. Cantab. i. 357-8.
20. Test. Ebor. v. 68-70; another example is that of Brian Wensdale who in 1519 left books of canon law: ibid. v. 99-100; John Chapman, who built up a fortune as registrar, also had a library: ibid. v. 240-5.
21. D.N.B.; Drake, Ebor. 377; A. À Wood, Athenae Oxon. ed. P. Bliss, ii. 289; his Testaments and Last Wills went through many edns. 1590-1743; his splendid memorial is in the north choir aisle of the minster.
22. Reid, King's Counc. in North, 490 sqq. gives their periods of service and main offices; the younger Rokeby wrote 'Oeconomia Rokebiorum': B.M. Add. MS. 24470, ff. 294-333, print. T. D. Whitaker, Richmondshire, i. 158 sqq.; Fern wrote The Blazon of Gentrie (1586).
23. De Fonblanque, Annals House of Percy, i. 407, n. 2; L. & P. Hen. VIII, xii(2), 57; he was apparently also in orders since he sat as a judge in the consistory court during the trial (1534) of the heretic Vanbellaer: York Dioc. Regy. (St. Ant. Hall), Reg. Lee, f. 90.
24. York Civ. Rec. v. 122, 172; Yorks. Wills, ii (Y.A'.S., Rec. Ser. xiv), 167.
25. Cooper, Ath. Cantab. i. 327.
27. J. J. Cartwright, Chapters in Yorks. Hist. 145.
28. Morris, Troubles Cath. Forefathers, iii. 289-91.
29. York Civ. Rec. v. 187-8; L. & P. Hen. VIII, xiv(2), p. 225.
30. York Civ. Rec. vii. 48.
32. Test. Ebor. v. 38.
35. York Dioc. Regy. (St. Ant. Hall), R. VI. A. 1, ff. 72, 95a-b.
36. York Civ. Rec. v. 130.
38. e.g. a teacher of the lute: E. Peacock, List Rom. Cath. in Co. York, 59; refs. to instruments and written music are not uncommon in wills, e.g. Test. Ebor. v. 22, 49.
39. York Civ. Rec. iii. 129, 134; v. 161; vi. 16, 119, 121, 125; vii. 18, 42, 53; viii. 23, 80, 94.
41. J. T. Murray, Eng. Dram. Companies, 1558-1642, ii. 411-13.
42. A. Raine, Hist. St. Peter's Sch. 80-81.
43. York Civ. Rec. viii. 76-77, 103: the chamberlains' accts. give a few further partics.: R. Davies, Extracts Rec. of York, 274-5.
44. York Civ. Rec. vi. 106.
46. Flemish in manner and possibly imported.
47. York Civ. Rec. vi. 135.
51. J. S. Purvis, Tudor Par. Docts. 86.
52. York Civ. Rec. iii. 131-2.
54. 5 Eliz. c. 4, s. ix; G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes Eliz. and Jas. I, 47-48.
55. Trans. R.H.S. 5th ser. vi. 18.
56. Notice the attitude of mayor John Lewes to the plague: York Civ. Rec. v. 49.

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