Citizenship for women in later medieval towns was largely connected to their opportunities to develop retail businesses. Throughout the later medieval period, York was one of the largest retail centres in the north of England, and opportunities for female employment were high. York played a central role as a royal administrative stronghold during the wars between England and Scotland, and this role was particularly important in the decades between 1298 and 1336, when the city probably reached the peak of its population in the medieval period at around 22,000. The Black Death in 1349 and repeated epidemic diseases thereafter was a substantial blow from which the city's population never fully recovered, and by 1500 it was perhaps home to no more than 8000 residents. Citizenship was a privileged status accorded to perhaps no more than one quarter of the adult male population, and it conferred economic and political privileges and obligations.