York

York

Roman

A Roman legionary fortress, colonia, and provincial capital, Eboracum was founded in the early 70s ad as a fortress for legio IX Hispana. After the withdrawal of IX Hispana, its place was taken by legio VI Victrix, which remained in garrison, probably until the end of the Roman period. The fortress lay between the rivers Ouse and Foss. Originally built in timber, it was rebuilt in stone either side of 100. Across the Ouse a civil settlement grew up which was promoted colonia, probably when York became capital of the new province of Britannia Inferior at the beginning of the 3rd cent. York remained a provincial capital in the 4th cent. and a bishop attended the Council of Arles in 314. Comparatively little is known of the colonia, but there were large public buildings, including baths, and private buildings with mosaics, attesting to prosperity of a provincial capital. Inscriptions and burials show a wide range of beliefs besides Christianity, and inscriptions also attest to traders with links to Rouen, Bourges, and Bordeaux. Fortress and colonia seem to have been abandoned early in the 5th cent.

Alan Simon Esmonde Cleary

post-Roman

York re-emerges in historical record in 627 when the first Christian king of Northumbria was baptized there, and a bishopric established (an archbishopric from 735). By the 8th cent. it was a flourishing river port; between 866 and 954 it was in Viking hands, and was the capital of Danish and Norwegian kings, who fostered a commercial city (Jorvik) of international importance. In 954 it was absorbed into England, and by the 12th cent. it was the fourth wealthiest English town, with one of the largest Jewish communities (victims of a massacre in 1190). From 1212 to 1213 it acquired privileges of self-government, and intermittently between 1298 and 1337 acted as a temporary English capital during the Scottish Wars of Independence. Its golden age was the century c.1360–1460, when a boom in cloth-making and overseas trade made it the largest English town after London. From about 1460 it declined, despite strong support from Richard III, who had close links with the city. A modest recovery began with the residence in York of the king's Council in the North (1561–1641), although the civil wars (especially the siege of 1644) were damaging. Late Stuart and Hanoverian York flourished greatly as a social capital, but the city fell back in relative importance in the 19th cent., though the coming of the railways allowed some industry: growth was sufficient to create the usual problems of overcrowding and poverty, made notorious by B. S. Rowntree's classic study. Its relative lack of industrialization and war damage has left it with a rich legacy of historic buildings, including an almost intact circuit of medieval walls and gates.

David M. Palliser