Through the monasteries and hospitals the Church did valuable work in feeding the poor, helping the needy, and in educating the poorer citizens’ boys.  The royal Hospital of St. Leonard did such work.  It was a peculiar institution, being under the authority of the King, and containing a sisterhood as well as a brotherhood.  It included a grammar school and a song-school.  As an institution it was self-supporting; food was made on the premises, and the carpenters’ and similar work was done by brethren in the Hospital’s own workshops.

The large number of priests were variously employed.  There were priests who officiated in the monastic churches, in the parish churches (as rectors and chaplains, of whom there were 300 in York in 1436), in the cathedral where the number of chantry-chapels was very great and where services were held simultaneously as well as frequently.  Some priests were vicars, that is, while the living or “cure” of souls was held by the rector, the vicar was the actual priest in charge, for the rector probably held more than one benefice and could not serve personally in more than one.  Generally it was a corporate body, like the Dean and Chapter, or a monastery, that was the rector of a number of livings at the same time.

Of the many clergy serving the Minster the Dean, who was the incumbent, ranked first.  Much of the revenue of the Dean and Chapter, the Governing Body, came from landed possessions in York and various parts of the surrounding country.  These possessions, divided into prebends, provided livings for the thirty-six prebendaries or canons, who collectively formed the Chapter.  Each canon served at the Minster during a specified portion of the year, when he lived at his residence at York.  The residences of the prebendaries were mostly round the Minster Close.  While his own parish was served vicariously while he was at York, each canon had a minor-canon or vicar-choral to act as his deputy at York when he was absent.  These vicars-choral formed a corporate body and lived collegiately in the Bedern.  The numerous chantries in the Minster were served by priests who also lived collegiately but at St. William’s College.  The College, at the head of which was a Provost, was founded about the middle of the century.  Previously these priests had lived in private houses.

The parish priest was occupied in performing the services in his church, in hearing confessions, in teaching the children, in visiting, interrogating, consoling, and ministering the Sacraments to the sick and dying, and in guiding and sharing the life of his parish generally.  Each parish church had a number of clergy besides the parish priest attached to it:  the number varied from one to ten or more according to the number of chantries at the church.  Each priest was helped a great deal in parochial affairs by the parish clerk.  The latter was the chief lay official for business in connection with the parish church.  His duties required him to be a man of some education.