The wealthy trading class all over the country did great and lasting work in founding grammar schools and building or rebuilding cathedrals and churches or parts of them.  There was a social side to the guilds.  This appeared in the public processions and the performances of plays, the morality and mystery plays of mediaeval England.  There was also a strong religious side to the guilds.  The processions and plays were fundamentally religious.  The Church’s festivals were recognised as holidays.  Much money was given and bequeathed for the foundation of chantries, which with their priests have their place also in the educational life of the city.

The merchants lived well.  They were rich from trade, and through the corporate guilds governed their own trades both legislatively and executively; the highest offices in civic life were theirs; they lived in houses as splendid as they cared to have them; they furnished their homes with quantities of silver plate, both for use and for ornament, for this was the most suitable outlet for superfluous wealth in days when modern facilities for investment did not exist; they wore clothes of fine material, richly trimmed; they were honoured citizens; they were earnest in religion and their benevolence to the Church is very remarkable.  They were forming a lesser aristocracy now that they were becoming owners of agricultural land as well as town property.  They had the benefits of wealth and comfort, while they were shrewd enough to avoid the penalties of advertised riches.  A typical instance of a successful merchant who rose to high positions was that of Sir Richard Yorke, who was Mayor of the staple of Calais and Lord Mayor of York in 1469 and 1482, and member of Parliament.  A window in St. John’s Church, Micklegate, in commemoration of him is still to be seen.  A shield bearing his arms (azure, saltire argent) appears in the glass; another bears the arms of the Merchants of the Wool staple of Calais.  He was knighted by Henry VII. when that king was in York in 1487.

Masters took apprentices, who themselves generally became masters in their turn.  The conditions of apprenticeship were ruled in detail by the guilds.

When a workman became a skilled artisan he was called a journeyman,[3] that is, a man who earned a full day’s pay for his work.  The legal hours of work were, from March to September, from 5 a.m. to 7.30 p.m., with half an hour for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner.  Saturday was universally a half-holiday.  There were 44 working weeks in a year and, consequently, a total of holidays and non-working times of eight weeks.  The burden of the very long hours was increased by the great physical exertion required from men who had to do much that is now done with the help of machinery.  The strain was not always unrecognised, for the Minster workmen were allowed a period of rest during the working day.

Some of the men engaged in the construction of the Minster were not York men.  The men employed there were by exception under ecclesiastical control.  They were not governed by any of the city trade guilds.  The master-mason was in charge of the whole of the building operations.