A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



Again early in the 17th century the mayor and aldermen interfered on behalf of women. 

 Candle-making had been a domestic industry, but the tallow chandlers of York made themselves 

 into a company with the result that candles rose in price from 4.d. to Sd. a pound and that divers 

 poor citizens and widows were thrown out of employment. But the court refused to countenance 

 the change and twenty of the petitioners were licensed to make candles in spite of the efforts of the 

 newly constituted company.'' 



The bakers' ordinances of 1595 have a regulation that 'no woman should be set on worke ' 

 except the wife or daughter of a free baker." 



Wardell has an allusion to various gilds, cloth workers, mercers, grocers, salters, drapers, 

 millwrights, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, coopers, bricklayers, cordwainers, tailors, ironmongers, 

 glaziers, cutlers, pewterers, which were incorporated at Leeds in 1663," but there is no evidence t 

 show what connexion, if any, there is between the old gild organizations and these new and possibly 

 ephemeral institutions. There is, however, no doubt that the fact that Hull and York were the 

 centres of local branches of the two great national trading companies, the Merchant Adventurers '* 

 and the Eastland Merchants,'^ was a powerful stimulus to the development of industrial Yorkshire ; 

 still by the end of the 17th century gilds and companies had alike ceased to be factors of any 

 importance in the general economic condition of the county, though even to-day the Merchant 

 Adventurers and Merchant Tailors of York continue to hold meetings, have their halls, and attend 

 various ceremonies in commemoration of pious benefactors. 



Although the country never again suffered from such an awful visitation as the plague 

 of 1348-9, still it is difficult in this age of freedom from epidemic to realize what an important 

 factor both politically and economically these constant recurring pestilences were. The municipal 

 records of York bear ample testimony to the terror which news of these outbreaks excited in the 

 civic authorities. In fact, one of the great events of English history, the foundation of the Tudor 

 dynasty, might not have taken place had not the absence of many of the members of the council 

 from York, on account of the plague, prevented any opposition to the march of Henry Tudor 

 through Yorkshire, for York had long been the stronghold of Yorkist partisans. But the times were 

 changed since Archbishop Zouch relied chiefly on prayer and fasting to stop the Black Death of 

 1349 ; precautions were taken to prevent its entrance into the city, and isolation was forced upon the 

 victims. The material disadvantages are forcibly pointed out by the lord mayor : — 



' Unles a good order be p[ro]v)'ded forthwith for such howses as ar infectyd with the said plag 

 mych inconvyence and greyt derth of people ys like to ensue and also all strangers by occason of the 

 sayd plage forber and withdraw themselves and but lyttell resorte unto the said citie to the great 

 damage and impov[eriss]hing of the moste parte of the Inhabitants of the said citie and forasmyche as 

 Thomas Myddleton of this citie Inholder beyng sore infect with the seyd plage obstinately and wilfully 

 hath brokyn suche order as was laitely takjn by the lord maier of this citie and his Breth(r)en to the 

 greyte infeccon of a multytude of the citizens of the seyd citie for whiche misdemeanours to the example 

 yt is agreed by the said p[re]sens yt there shalbe levyd of the goods and chattels of the seyd Thomas 

 Myddylton . . ." 



In May 1 550 there was a serious outbreak of plague, but as the regulations were lax, for the city 

 council enacted ' that plague-stricken people only to go abowte in case of necessity and then to here 

 a white wand,' it was no wonder that the disease spread and that a hundred people were suffering 

 from it by the end of the month. Apparently these were mostly the very poor, for Sd. a week 

 was given to them out of the city fund.^' 



The scarcity of food was so great during this visitation that a by-law had to be passed 

 prohibiting any kind of grain being sent out of the city, and obliging butchers, who had fled 

 from the city, to return ' and serve the inhabitants with vytells at a reasonable price,' or to pay a fine 

 of j^io.*^ So disastrous were the results that several years later York, in petitioning Parliament for 

 remission of taxation, assigned as a reason ' that there is a great number of howses vacante within the 

 same by reason of the grete pestilence that was laitly there.' ^' But this attack of plague was fairly 

 general, for Princess Mary had to leave Wanstead on account of it.** 



In 1563, when the plague was raging in London and throughout the country, five unfortunate 

 York drapers and a goldsmith visited Stourbridge Fair, bought extensively, and returned with their 

 wares to the city. It was reported that the plague was rife at Stourbridge. The men were ordered 



" York Munic. Rec. xrxiii, fol. 77, 20 Oct. 1615. " B. M. Add. MS. 34605, fol. 36. 



" J. Wardell, Municipal Leeds, 34. 



" ' The Merchant Adventurers of York,' Handbook of the British Association (York 1 906), 2 1 2-2 7. 



" ' The Acts and Ordinances of the Eastland Company ' Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. (3rd series), xi. 



*°York Mun. Rec. xix, fol. \oib, 20 Jan. 1549. 



" Ibid. XX, fol. 1 8a, 28 May 1550. »' Ibid. fol. 22^, 9 July 1550. 



** Ibid, xxi, fol. 20^, 19 Dec. 1552. " C. Creighton, op. ci't. 304. 



454 



