Without the city and the cultivated land near by most of the country
consisted of great stretches of forest,[1] _i.e._ wood, marsh, moor,
waste-land. This surrounding forest-land was crossed by the few
high-roads leading to and from the city, which they entered through
the Bars. The country was not all wild and tenantless, for here and
there, scattered about, were baronial castles and estates, and
monastic houses and lands, all of which had their farming. In the
forests there were villages each consisting of a few houses grouped
together for common security, where lived minor officials and men
working in the forest. The great Forest of Galtres, to the north of
York, was a royal domain.

In the fifteenth century the population of York, the greatest city of
the north, was about 14,000. Newcastle was the next greatest, being
one of the ten or twelve leading cities of mediæval England which had
a total population of about 2-1/2 millions. The inhabitants of York
registered in 1911 numbered 83,802.

Within the city there was a number of sub-entities, each
self-contained and definitely marked off, often by enclosing,
embattled walls. Such was the Minster, which stood within its close.
The Liberty of the Minster of St. Peter included the parts of the city
immediately round the Minster, the Archbishop's Palace, and the Bedern
(a small district in the city where some of the Minster clergy lived
collegiately), and groups of houses and odd dwellings scattered
throughout other parts of the city and the county and elsewhere.
Individual monasteries formed further such sub-entities; for instance
St. Mary's Abbey, which was actually outside the city walls, but
within its own defensive walls; the Franciscan Friary near the Castle;
Holy Trinity Priory; the royal Hospital of St. Leonard. The Castle,