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Verona was a lovely destination for the first (non-Alpine) half of our holiday this year - with plenty to see (between aperitifs 😂).

The map below shows the city in 1668, with walls (still standing) adapted to defend against artillery. This book was displayed in the Cathedral 'Chapter Library' - which claims to be the oldest library still in existence. 

The map shows the Castelvecchio, built in the 14th century and now an art gallery. The beautiful bridge had to be reconstructed in the post-war period as all the river crossings in the city were destroyed by retreating German forces in WWII (the castle was also largely gutted by Allied bombing) - conflict shapes so much of contemporary Europe.

We spent many 'long lunches' in the Piazza delle Erbe in the centre of the city. It was the main market place and one of the buildings in the square, 'La Berlina', has a set of measurement standards for traders - a ring to check bundles of wood and incised measures in the stonework for tiles and bricks.

One additional 'A223 feature' in the square were the remaining buildings of the original Jewish Ghetto in Verona. As in Venice (and I presume other cities) the constraint on Jews to live in a prescribed area, with no room to expand horizontally, led to distinctive 'high rise' buildings - like the seven story towers you can see below. 

As a marker of more modern tensions the nearby synagogue was under the watchful eye of heavily armed private security guards. 

I wasn't sure that I would be able to find much in the way of a link between York and the A223 content on Early Modern Black Lives, but a Black History Month link from the University of York brought a fascinating one in the person of Bill Richmond, bare knuckle boxer! (To be fair Bill only just makes it into the OU definition of early modern, born in 1763 and doing most of his fighting in the early 19th century - but it was too good a story to pass over). There's not space for the full biography, but there is a good summary in the ODNB. Born into enslavement on Staten Island, Richmond was brought to the UK, as a free man, by Hugh Percy who would in due course become second Duke of Northumberland (he had been serving with the British army in North America during the War of Independence). Percy apparently set Richmond up with an education and an apprenticeship in joinery. It was the latter which brought him to Yorkshire, probably from around 1779. 

A couple of 'secondary sources' Luke Williams's biography of Richmond and George (Flashman) MacDonald Fraser's fictional account of Tom Molyneaux's life story

A lot of the descriptions of Bill Richmond's life come from later accounts by journalists, produced once he'd become a high profile boxer and also a trainer and fight promoter. They make great reading. The following section is from BOXIANA; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism; From the days of the renowned Broughton and Slack to the HEROES of the present MILLING ERA! written by Pierce Egan. It describes one of Richmond's 'amateur' fights whilst in York (he moved to London with his wife by the mid 1790's), and also the provocation for it.

(There's more on Richmond in York in this blog post)

Richmond picked up professional boxing in his forties and had a successful career, he was also linked with an even more famous Black boxer - Tom Molyneaux, also a former slave, who was involved in what (I've now discovered) was a very famous couple of fights (1810-11) with the British champion of that time, Tom Cribb. Richmond trained and promoted Molyneaux, who came close to taking the title (in fact might have been effectively cheated of it in his first bout, through a 'long count' in the 28th round!). 

These were all such larger than life stories, described in fabulous melodramatic prose - they really added a different perspective to the OU chapter. Whilst people like Richmond and Molyneaux were subject to prejudice and abuse and were highly constrained by the social forces in play in the late 18thC /early 19thC there is also a lot of agency exhibited as they 'negotiated' there way through life. I'm glad I've encountered their stories - and will see what more I can find out about them.

Chapter 13 of A223 'The Reformation and local communities', or at least part of it, is literally on my doorstep. The 'Pilgrimage of Grace' of 1536 is mentioned in the materials as an example of resistance to the Reformation, and a few years ago a local history group in my nearby market town of Pocklington set up a walking trail to commemorate it. 

Like many trails, the actual route is determined by available access, and the connection with paths taken by anyone in 1536 are perhaps a little tenuous - but it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning.

The logic of the trail is that it connects a couple of monastic sites with one of the locations that East Yorkshire rebels stopped at on their way towards York. The path runs from the village of Warter, which was the site of an Augustinian priory, through Nunburnholme, which had a small Benedictine nunnery, and ends in the town of Pocklington. Both the religious houses at Warter and Nunburnholme had been dissolved earlier in 1536 and the 'Pilgrims' reinstated them during the rebellion.

This is the church of St James in the village of Warter, it stands on the site of the former priory church. It was recorded that there were 12 canons resident at the time it was suppressed in August 1536; there are records of fine vestments, plate and jewelry and a holy relic, 'St James hand'. The sub-prior and the kitchener of the priory (their names aren't recorded) participated in either the 1536 'Pilgrimage' or the subsequent rebellions of early 1537 - they were executed in York in February of that year.  

The walk takes you along quiet back roads to the village of Nunburnholme, the Benedictine priory there was one of the smallest and poorest religious houses in the county - six nuns had been living on the site at the time of dissolution (Warter priory had been valued at £140, Nunburnholme only managed £10 3s 3d). 

There is nothing left to see of the nunnery, but it was located to the right of the beck as you look eastward up the valley.

Fortunately there's a very handy sign attached to the bus stop, which gives an idea of what the village might have looked like!

The path doesn't really need much signage, but if you look closely on the signpost you can possibly pick out the banner of the five wounds of Christ that was used by the rebels and is the logo for the trail. 

(This is a really grim looking selfie - promise I was enjoying this a lot more than it looks 🤣)

The picture below is taken looking south-west from the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, out over some of the area from which many commoners were drawn into the rebellion. There were a number of separate groups forming across East and North Yorkshire; the body of men that stopped at Pocklington were on there way to York under the leadership of the one-eyed lawyer Robert Aske, who would have a key role in drafting their oath as well as the '24 Articles' that we look at in the module materials. 

The trail stops off at the Georgian mansion at Kilnwick Percy, shown below. There is a slight link with Henry VIII (if not the Pilgrimage of Grace) as it was built on the site of a tudor manor house owned in 1536 by Sir Thomas Heneage, who had just been appointed as the king's 'Groom of the Stool'!

As we probably all got to module A223 via module A111 (with its chapter on Buddhism and compassion) I couldn't resist highlighting that Kilnwick Percy is now in fact a Buddhist retreat - I had a hot chocolate at its 'World Peace Cafe' (to be honest with things as they are at the moment, every little helps!!)

Finally, after about eight miles, the walk ends up at All Saints church in Pocklington, which was looking very impressive in the sunlight today. 

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a complex rebellion, with a mixture of aims and objectives, some about religion, some about political and economic tensions between 'North' and 'South' - but provides a fascinating 'what if...', it does feel that for a short period in 1536/7 the 'top-down' English Reformation was in very serious trouble.

A223 had a fascinating chapter on urban environments, which really helped me to better understand my nearest City of York. This was a record of 'early modern' buildings in central York that I took one morning [12/1/2025] on a quick 'field trip' - plus some pictures which show what the period did to older ones.

It's not easy to avoid the crowds in York, but a cold, overcast, early Sunday morning in January is perhaps ideal - if not hugely photogenic! 😀

Firstly, St Mary's Abbey church, once a building on a similar scale as York Minster, but dissolved in 1539. The Reformation had a very significant impact in York, as much of its power and significance came from the church. Looking at the map of Avignon in the module materials made me think how similar the two locations must have been at one time. There are no doubt 'bits' of St Mary's in many early modern buildings in York, as the site was effectively a quarry for many years.

The Abbots house survived however and was taken over by the Crown, it was repurposed as a site for regional government - the location for the 'Council of the North'. It was known as the 'King's Manor' and was briefly the Royalist 'capital' during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Not much remains of St Leonard's Hospital - once one of England's largest medieval hospitals. The loss of church 'welfare' provision through the Reformation was probably felt more in York than the loss of the Abbey.

Many buildings in the Minster precincts found new owners/uses after the Reformation. This had been the house of the Minster's Treasurer - and was sold back to the Archbishop and eventually became a private residence. 



St William's College had been a residential complex for chantry priests at the Minster - there were 24 of these, all out of a job with the Reformation. This building went into private ownership, at one point it was the Royal print works producing propaganda for King Charles I.

Mendicant Friars had funded the building of St Anthony's Hall shown above. It was taken over by the city governors after the Reformation, becoming at different times a site for a variety of local guilds, a workhouse, a house of correction and a charitable school. It now partly houses a Presbyterian church group.

This is probably my favourite early modern 'makeover'. This was originally a medieval riverside defensive structure, housing one end of a chain across the river Ouse that was raised to control shipping. By 1631 it had become the 'Waterhouse' and was essentially a water tower supplying the city, a system that was augmented with a steam engine in 1780. (Pumping York's polluted river water into its houses ensured the city fared particularly badly in the 1832 cholera outbreak, but that's a different module 😀)

This is York's medieval 'Monk Bar' - (the city's gates are called 'bars' and, confusingly for some, many of the streets are called 'gates'). You can make out a number of the 'control' features it provided, the hinges for wooden gates are visible, as are the tips of the portcullis that could be lowered, but in more common use would have been the (now bricked) window at which toll-collectors sat enforcing local taxation on goods entering the city.

There are a few remaining guild halls in York - this is the location of the Merchant Taylors. This had been established in the medieval period, the guild added a hospital in the early modern period 

Time for some early modern 'new builds'...

Finished in 1735, these are York's Assembly Rooms. It was too early in the day to eat today, but I have been for a meal in the past and the interior is a stunning location in which to eat pizza!

It was the city council that kicked off the idea of building Assembly Rooms as an entertainment venue - and they also funded this residence for the Lord Mayor - the Mansion House finished in 1732. The house sits directly in front of the guildhall, which you can enter via the big green doors - or can't when they're shut like they were this morning! 😠

This is a great example of the early modern aristocracy buying into urban living. Fairfax House was bought by Viscount Fairfax of Elmley in 1760 as a gift for his daughter Anne, a place to hang out rather than living in their 'country seat' at Gilling Castle. 

I guess Anne's leisure pursuits might have included a bit of shopping...
In 1759 the shop on the left was a booksellers, advertising itself “At the Sign of the Bible” as it had since the late 17th century, and it was the place that Laurence Sterne sold the first 200 copies of his first volume of 'Tristram Shandy which he had printed in the city.

Not so sure Anne Fairfax would have been off to the track, but you never know...

This early modern building at York's Knavesmire racecourse is not that easy to spot, and takes a bit of imaginative 'reconstruction'. But it contains the remaining lower storey of the world's first 'grandstand', built in 1756.

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It helps perhaps to know what it originally looked like...

Courtesy British Library (Maps K.Top.45.6.e)

Of course early modern life couldn't all be fun though.

Robert Aske, who we will meet in a couple of weeks rebelling at the head of the 'Pilgrimage of Grace', ended up hanging in chains from Clifford's Tower here in 1537. 

A walk up the castle mound gives good views of three new 18th century buildings...

From left to right these are: the Female Prison - built in 1780 to partly relieve the overcrowded...Debtor's Prison - built in 1701 and finally the County Court built in 1777. The court is still in use, the prison buildings now house a museum.

This building was the manse for a newly built Methodist Chapel, John Wesley was a regular guest and preached at the opening of this new religious building which backs on to the house.

There were a range of non-conformist groups active (and building) in York. Quakers still continue to meet on the site they have used since 1674, but now in a Victorian structure.

The image below is of York Unitarian Chapel which was built in 1693 only a few years after the 'Toleration Act' of 1688 allowed some Protestant nonconformist groups in England to worship publicly. It was initially a Presbyterian chapel (non-trinitarian beliefs like those held by 'Unitarians' were not then legal).

I'd only paid for a couple of hours parking so had to draw the line somewhere 😀, but ended up at another impressive 'new build' ...



Bootham Park Hospital was built as York Lunatic Asylum in 1777. Impressive on the outside, the misery caused inside and in particular the treatment of a Quaker woman, Hannah Mills, led to the creation of the city's second hospital in the early modern period for those suffering with mental illness. The Retreat, funded by local Quakers, pioneered more humane treatments.

Which is perhaps a positive place to end, but then I realised I'd missed what has long been York's major building and was so in the early modern period despite a lot of change going on - it is particularly hard to ignore on a Sunday morning! 🔔🔔🔔

(The current Minster bells were all actually cast in the 20th century, but whilst changes might be being rung the sound seems to me to be all about continuity.)