The Preplague Population of England
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10068422 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Josiah C Russell (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1966 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| Publication date | 1966-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of British Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1086/385516 |
| OpenAlex | W2047686122 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 20 |
Sometime in the period 1300-48, English population reached its high point in the Middle Ages. All agree that it rose rapidly in the thirteenth century and dropped catastrophically in 1348-77. Its course in the first half of the century, however, is the subject of two sharply divergent opinions. One is that population increased gradually to about 3,700,000 at the outbreak of the plague, a point at which “the agricultural people were being crowded.” The other opinion is less exact: population reached its height about 1315, when the great famine and pestilence of 1315-17 reduced the population markedly and started a decline, restrained perhaps by a mild recovery in the two decades before 1348. According to this second theory population was much denser than the 3,700,000: even in the late thirteenth century, England had a “starving and over-populated countryside,” with “the poor sokemen of Lincolnshire — [struggling] to support five people on five acres of land,” and “a society in which every appreciable failure of harvests could result in large increases in deaths in a society balanced on the margin of subsistence.” This study will discuss first the pattern of English society as it appears in Domesday Book and the descriptions of manors called extents, which must be understood in order to estimate population properly. Next, it will consider some interesting evidence concerning social class differential mortality. Third, it will try to estimate the mortality of the 1315-17 famine and pestilence. Fourth, it will take up the trend of population change from 1300 to 1348. Fifth, it will consider the reliability of the poll tax data. Lastly, it will discuss the problem of household size and its relationship to the total population of England in the period
Agriculture · Ancient history · Archaeology · Developed country · Economic history · Famine · Genealogy · Geography · Historical demography · Middle Ages · Middle class · Plague (disease · Political science · Population · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Subsistence agriculture · Demography · History · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management · Law
Studies in the agrarian history of England in the thirteenth century (Studies in mediaeval history)
The Short Dark Folk of England
Late Ancient and Medieval Population
Recent Advances in Mediaeval Demography
Taxation of Personal Property and of Clerical Incomes, 1399 to 1402
The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317
The Domestic Background of Troilus and Criseyde
The Medieval Household
La famine de l'an 1316 en Flandre et dans les régions voisines
La famine de l'an 1316 en Flandre et dans les regions voisines
Population Density in Medieval Fenland
Some Thirteenth-Century Censuses
Medieval Treatises on Estate Management
Village Livestock in the Thirteenth Century
British Medieval Population
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,1 |
| Citation span | 1986 - 2016 (31) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |