for miraculous cures or the efficacy of the spiritual benefit derived from worshipping at it and invoking the help of the saint, was for many an exercise of deep religious devotion.  There is no doubt, moreover, that at the shrines of the saints the Church proved itself a great healer.  It was in fact the popular physician.  Apart from surgery, the medical practice of the twentieth century is in some ways the successor of that of the Church of the fifteenth.

When very popular religious men died, or when, if they were already dead as in the case of William, Archbishop of York (who died in 1153 and was canonised in 1227), popularity sprang up, it was quite usual for it to be discovered that miracles were being wrought at their tombs.  The case of the popular Archbishop Scrape who was executed is a typical one.  In this way the calendar of saints was enlarged, the devout had a new interest, the Church maintained its position in the popular eye and mind, and its funds increased.

The mediaeval Church, however, appeared perhaps at its best in its Church services, which drew their effect from the sanctity of the magnificent building (whether cathedral or parish church), the awe inspired by the Church politic, the use of Latin and the learned atmosphere, the religious teaching, and, not least, the imposing ceremonies, and the ornate ritual performed amid a profusion of lighted wax candles by priests and dignitaries in resplendent vestments.

E. EDUCATION

The only school engaged in higher education in York in the century was St. Peter’s School, a very old foundation, where Alcuin, who (in 782) had carried educational reform to the land of the Franks, had been master.  At this school, which was attached to the cathedral, were educated those who were to spend their lives in scholarship, especially, as now, after residence at Oxford or Cambridge; future priests and clerks; the sons of the nobility and of the more wealthy members of the merchant class in the city.  Other regular schools were the Grammar School at the royal Hospital of St. Leonard and the one at Fossgate Hospital.  This educational work was one of the most valuable kinds of public work done by these hospitals.

A more elementary and less well organised education was given by the parish priests and the chantry priests, from whom the children of the city generally, boys and girls, received at least oral instruction.

Girls usually received a practical upbringing at home.  The only schools for girls were those attached to women’s monasteries, of which there was St. Clement’s Nunnery alone in York.

Educational welfare work, as distinct from direct and organised class-teaching, was carried on by the friars, the religious men who lived under a rule but who went out to work in the world, instead of spending their lives in seclusion as the monks did.  The Dominican and Franciscan Friars played an important part in education by teaching, especially at the Universities.  Education was also a foremost interest of the Augustinians, who supported a college at Oxford.