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York at the beginning of the fifteenth century was a city that enjoyed a comparatively high level of prosperity and self-confidence. The turbulent politics of the early 1380s may not have entirely disappeared, but major rioting in the city was a generation away.1 The 1396 charter represented a high water mark in terms of the citizens running their own affairs under their own elected mayor.2 By and large the local economy prospered and craft guilds were rapidly emerging. As the 1381 poll tax and the franchise register show, the city was characterized by a wide range of crafts, with cloth manufacture, the provision of foodstuffs, leather working, and the metal trades all being major employers. Bakers were concentrated on Ousegate close to the main grain market on Pavement. Butchers packed The Shambles. The parish of All Saints, North Street, conveniently located on the river, but on the opposite bank from the mercantile heart of the city, was home to numbers of tanners and dyers underpinning the city’s leather and textile industries.3 Numbers of these craft groups were involved in the emerging Corpus Christi Play first documented in 1386–87.4 |
