A. D. 1377. 



5^. 



From the accounts of the produce of this tax, happily prefcrved *, we 

 are enabled to form, a pretty good eftimate of the population of the 

 whole kingdom, and particularly of the following cities and towns. 



London, a city 



York, a city 



Bristol 



Plymouth 



Coventry 



Norwich, a. city 



LitiGoIn, a city 



Salisbury, a city - 



Lynne 



Colchester 



Beverly 



Newcastle upon Tine 



Canterbury, a city - 



S'. Edmundsbury 



Oxford 



Gloucester 



Leicester 



Shrewsbury 



Yarmouth 



Hereford, a city 



Ely, a city 



The counties of Bedford, Surrey §, Dorfet, Middlefex exclufive of 

 London ||, Weftmereland, Rutland, Cornwall, Berks, Hertford, Hunting- 

 don, Buckingham, and Lancafter, contained no towns thought worthy 

 of particular enumeration. Chefter and Durham, being palatine coun- 

 ties and having their own colledors, are not included in the roll ; neither 

 is Wales. 



The whole number of lay perfons taxed in the Ihires and towns inferted 



* For the publication of them we are indebted 

 to Mr. Topham and the Antiquarian fociety. See 

 their Archaologla, V. vii, p. 340. ' 



f As many people would endeavour to pafs their 

 children of 15 and 16 as under 14, and many miifl 

 Isave been omitted by the colleftors, we (hall pro- 

 bably come very near the truth, if we reckon the 

 untaxed perfons, exclufive of beggars, equal'to one 

 half of tliofe who psid the tax. Thofe, who have 

 made the duration of human life their ftudy, agree 

 that one third of the perfons living arc under fix- 

 teen. 



+ It is recorded in the patent rolls \_fec. 14 

 Ric. 11, m. 3] that onf thoujand Jive hundred houfes 

 's'ere burnt in the three principal ftreets of Car= 



lile. But, notwithftanding the high authority of ■ 

 a public record, and though the number is ex- 

 preffed fully in words, there muft be a- miftake. 

 Carlile, like almoll every other town in the king- 

 dom, is furely much more populoirs now than in 

 the fourteenth century : and in the year 1780 the 

 city and fuburbs contained only 1,605 families, or . 

 6,299 perfons, who lodged in 891 houfes. See 

 Sir Frederic Eden's Stale of the p'.or, V. W, p. 64. 



§ Southwark feems to be included in London. 



Jl It is furpriiing that VVellminll'r is not no- 

 ticed. We can fcarccly fuppofc it included in 

 London ; and yet the taxables of Middlefex, only 

 1 1,243, ^^^^ too few to comprehend the inhabit- 

 ants of that city, or large fuburb. 



