POLL TAX ACCOUNT FOR CORNWALL, A.D. 1377. 29 
shewing the number of persons chargeable and the amount received 
in each parish. By adding to the number thus given the approxi- 
mate number of persons of and below the age of 14 years, which, 
according to statistical experience and calculation, should exist,® we 
arrive at the aggregate number of the population within the district. 
Notwithstanding that this record does not enter into detail of 
the nature of the employment of the several persons or their 
social condition, and is deficient ef much valuable information 
contained in the modern Census Returns, itis, we think, a docu- 
ment of great curiosity and of no small interest, especially in this 
Census year. It relates, however, to the laity only. The Clergy, 
doubtless, otherwise paid their quota of the sum required, but the 
Clerical Subsidy Returns for this period are not in existence—The 
number of Clerics in the County, however, at the date in question 
must have been comparatively small, and, taken together with the 
beggars, would produce no appreciable effect upon the aggregate 
population. 
On the day on which the Census was taken in 1861 the total 
population of Cornwall, exclusive of the Scilly Islands, was 
366,959, and upon the basis of the whole population of England 
the proportion of children under 14 years of age to the total 
number is °3348. This will give the population in Cornwall 
under 14 as 122,858, and the number aged 14 and upwards as 
244,101 = 366,959. In 1377 the population of the County 
(exclusive of Clergymen and beggars) exceeding 14 years of age 
was 34,274, as shewn by the Poll Tax Account, and, assuming the 
birth rate at that date not to have differed much from that of 
1861, we should, for children under 14 years of age, add thereto 
17,137, making the total population of the County in 1377 51,411, 
In 1801 the number of people in the County was 189,278, but no 
record has been preserved of their relative ages. 
Hee indentura testatur quod Herveus Treuaswithen et socii collectores 
eujusdam subsidii quatuor denariorum Domino Regi concessi in parliamento 
suo in xv° Sancti Hillarii anno regni Regis Hdwardi Tertij a conquestu angliz 
LjP° recesserunt et habuerunt de Waltero Carnsuyou et Waltero Banadlek 
subcollectoribus subsidii predicti de parochia Sancti Landy in hundredo de 
Kerrier per sacramenta sua de lxix hominibus et feminis laicis excedentibus 
etatem quatuordecim annorum de eadem parochia xxiij solidos. Datum 
apud Penryn die Lune proximo post festum Sancti Marci anno supradicto. 
* The proportion of children under 14 years of age to persons 14 and 
‘upwards is -5003. 
12 
