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The Low Petergate excavations offered a rare and valuable opportunity for extending our understanding of medieval York. The combination of a well stratified sequence, good dating evidence and a narrow time-frame, together with the richness of the artefactual evidence, makes this a significant site for understanding the turbulent years of the 14th century and further study is merited. Research by scholars both in York and elsewhere will continue on the leather, the animal bones, the pottery, the textiles and the metal-working evidence. As the results become available and their significance in the wider context of medieval archaeology becomes clear, this website will be augmented and developed. What has emerged is a picture of four medieval properties occupied by skilled artisans working in a range of crafts and industries. These included making and repairing shoes and other leather goods; and preparing and working with animal horn, antler and bone to produce, amongst other things, buttons and handles for knifes. The full range of the horners' skill will sadly never be known as horn is very unstable and rarely survives. Whether the blades for these knives were made by the iron-workers living next door might become clear as the ironwork is researched. It equally possible that the the leather straps and belts would have been fitted with the copper-alloy strap guides and buckles made by neighbours. Their products also not only provided the housewife with brooches and buckles for her garments, but also with cooking cauldrons to use alongside her range of pottery utensils. As well as cooking, domestic activities would have included brewing, spinning, sewing, laundry and many other household chores while music and gaming filled the few moments of relaxation. This assemblage offers evidence of all these aspects of life. What is striking is that many of the industrial activities were both noxious and potentially dangerous. Retting pits and discarded animal parts must have produced bad spells and a risk to health, whereas furnaces and hearths adjacent to timber building were obvious fire risks. Yet all this took place only a hundred metres from the Minster, right in the heart of the medieval city.
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