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a pillar or large bracket facing the west, stood an image of the 
Blessed Virgin. In 1402 a York merchant of the name of 
llichard Chase left by will a tenement to maintain a light which 
bmmed there. There was another image of the Virgin Mother 
inside, to bimi before which, in 1438, Thomas Arnold, vicar of 
Overton, bequeathed a candle of wax, weighing five pounds. 
He also left a service book, called a Portiforinm, to be fastened 
in the chapel by an iron chain. It was divided into two parts, 
called dimidials, or half years; that is, the services for the 
Slimmer and ivinter seasons were distinct and bound apart. In 
1458, a rector of Stokesley ornamented by will the altar in the 
chapel with an altar-cloth of Viennese work. Associated with 
this chapel, and holding its meetings probably in some room on 
the basement, was, in 1436, a guild bearing the name of St. 
Mary. It was composed, probably, of some of the inhabitants 
of Marygate and of the servants of the neighbouring abbey. 
The chapel stood in a somewhat noisy and turbulent place. 
Marygate in those days had the privilege of sanctuary, which 
was by no means conducive to the peace or respectability of its 
inhabitants, and then, around the entrance to the great abbey, 
for this was the only entrance, there would always be a little 
group of idlers, and hucksters, or bargees. The entrance door 
was not where the present iron gate stands, but rras thrown a 
little inwards, and in the intervening space, which was arched 
over, and had stone seats, there would often, as was the fashion 
in a monastic precinct, be pedlars and others waiting and 
chaffering with their wares. The first object which the monk 
beheld as he came through the archway on his road to the city 
was the figure of the Blessed Virgin high above him against 
the wall of the chapel, illuminated by the lamp which never was 
suffered to die down. 
In the first Register Book belonging to the city of York 
there is an account of a singular incident connected with this 
chapel of St. Mary. On Wednesday, the 25th of May, 1379, 
the day before Ascension Hay, a barge belonging to John 
Sheffield, of York, was on the river opposite the abbey, wRen a 
bargee, a native of Benningborough, called William Mjmne, 
fell some how or other into the water. Assistance was at hand, 
