long and had a tall spire.  It was only a little inferior to the Minster in magnificence.  On the south side were the Cloisters, the open-air work-place and recreation place of the monks, while beyond were the conventual buildings—­such as the calefactory or warming-house, the dormitories, and the refectory or room where meals were taken.  The cloisters were square in plan and consisted of a central grass plot, along the sides of which there was a continuous covered walk with unglazed windows facing the central open space.  Benedictine abbeys usually conformed to a common scheme as regards the planning of the church and the conventual buildings.  The cloisters were only one of the courts or open squares, which separated groups of conventual buildings.  Further, there were gardens and orchards.  Nearer the river there was the Hospitium, or guest-house, where visitors were lodged.  The abbey was within its own walls, and on one side its grounds extended to the river.  The gateway, comprising gate, lodge, and chapel, was on the north side.

Near the Castle there was an extensive Franciscan Friary.  On the other side of the river there was the priory of the Holy Trinity, the home of an alien Benedictine order.  A Carmelite Friary in Hungate, opposite the Castle, seems, from the few odd fragments of stone that remain, to have had fine buildings.  The Augustinian Friary was between Lendal and the river.  The Dominican house, which was burnt down in 1455, was on the site of the old railway station.

The only nunnery in the city was the Benedictine Priory of St. Clement.  There were sisterhoods in St. Leonard’s and other hospitals.  It should, however, be noted there were many nunneries in the districts round York.

Some of the religious institutions were called Hospitals.  The care of the sick was only one of the functions of this type of religious house.  Such was the large and famous St. Leonard’s Hospital, a royal institution that was not under the control of a bishop.  The beautiful ruins of St. Leonard’s, which adjoined St. Mary’s Abbey, prove how well this hospital had been built.  These hospitals, of which there were fifteen in York, were in close touch with the people.  While St. Mary’s, for instance, was one of the great abbeys, where the monks, by the time when the fifteenth century was advanced, were living luxuriously, easily, and generally unproductively, the religious of the hospitals and lesser houses, were still engaged in feeding the poor, tending the sick, and educating the children of the people.

Each of these religious institutions, whether monastery or hospital, was within its own grounds, bounded by its own walls.  Altogether they occupied a large part of the total area of the mediaeval city which their buildings adorned, and of which they were so characteristic a feature:  St. Mary’s Abbey, which with its buildings and grounds covered a large area, was actually outside the city proper, but it was immediately adjoining it.  There were nearly sixty monasteries, priories, hospitals, maisons-dieu, and chapels.  The maisons-dieu, of which there were sixteen, were smaller hospitals.  They combined generally the duties of almshouse and chantry.