Historical Demography at the Open of the Early Modern Period

Models, Methods, Sources, Facts

London’s Population

• Lists of taxpayers in lay subsidy rolls– 1292, 1319, 1332: 1,636 - 1,820 – (doesn’t include ‘foreigners’, women, those with less

than 6s 8d or 10s. of movable property

• 1300: 40,000 at least (Ekwall, subsidy rolls)• 1340: 60,000 (Russell)• 1340: 100,000 (Keene, Cheapside property)• General estimate: London’s population before

plague was c. 45,000

Demographic History Facts

• At least 80 percent of the population lived in the countryside and were directly engaged in farming the land

• Ratio of people to land was of “overwhelming significance to the economy” and it changed over time

• Break point is mid 14th century (Black Death)

Population Before Black Death (1348-50)

• Population doubled or trebled between end of 11th century and beginning of 14th

– E.g. manor of Taunton, Somerset rose 228 percent from 1212-1312

• Peak population 6 million

• Major reduction by famines 1315-17

• Late 15th century – c. 2 million people in England

Why the Population Decline?

• Subsistence crises of 1515-17

• Plague (mortality estimates vary from 20 to 50 percent)

Sources

• J. Hatcher and M. Bailey, Modelling the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

• Steven Inwood, A History of London (NY: Carroll & Graff, 1998)

• Larry Poos, A Rural Society after the Black Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)

• Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark (London: Hambledon, 1996)

• Zvi Razi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)

Halesowen, West Midlands