of ancient towns are now built over, but once were used for growing. In the Holywell estate, on the north side of Oxford, every parcel of ground that could be cultivated was occupied. Suppose we assume the amount of land regularly under the plough was equal to three-fourths of that which is now cultivated, and that the remaining fourth of the area represents that portion which was necessarily left waste in consequence of its lying on the Scotch and Welsh borders, or from its being part of the less perfectly settled. parts of England, as was certainly the case in the north-western counties, we may, perhaps, find the elements of the calculation.' (Vol. i. pp. 54-55.) It will be noticed that Mr. Rogers has arrived on this point at nearly the same conclusion as Mr. Hallam : 'From manorial surveys,' says the latter, and similar instruments, it appears that in some places there was nearly as much ground cultivated as in the present day. The condition of different counties however was far from being alike, and in general the northern and western parts of England were the most backward.'* Mr. Hallam was wrong, however, as to the West of England; there is no older cultivation in our island than that of Devon and Cornwall, and the area of the reclaimed lands in these counties has scarcely extended itself materially since the age of which he speaks. 6 The case therefore was this: England (the south at least) was hardly less cultivated than now, but the agriculture was very far less productive. We shall conclude as a rule,' says our author, after calculations which we omit, that the rate (of 'wheat) produced in the time before us was not much more than one-fourth of that procured by modern agriculture.' Reduce the cultivated area by one-fourth; the crop produced on that area by three-fourths; and in this way we might arrive, à priori, at some data for comparing the population of England in the fourteenth century with that which it now contains; assuming first--what there is no doubt of that no food was then imported, little if any exported; and, secondly, what is not quite so clear, that wheat was then, as now, the staple article of consumption. On this head of population, however, Professor Rogers arrives at conclusions from which, with all due respect for the means of knowledge with which his elaborate researches have furnished him, we are still disposed to dissent. 'I conclude that there were generally as many people existent in this country in the fourteenth century as there were, on the average, *Middle Ages, ch. ix. p. 12. quarters of wheat to feed them with. And furthermore I think that, judging from the evidence before us, the rate of increase was not more than four times. At present it is probably fifteen times, taking one wheat crop with another. But if the present population of England and Wales produces, as it most likely does, fifteen millions of quarters yearly, and imports five in order that its twenty millions should subsist, and we deduct one-fourth of the area of England now cultivated, the wheat produced in England five hundred years ago would not have sufficed for more than two and a half to three millions. 'But though, subject to the deduction made above, it seems likely that the area of land under the plough was not less than at present, it does not follow that wheat crops were as frequent. On the contrary, it is certain that by the system of fallows they must have been rarer. If under these circumstances one-fifth less wheat was annually cultivated, the estimate of the population would be diminished by another half million: and when we take into account the absence of the most familiar among our present vegetables, and consider how important a part they fulfil in the subsistence of the people, we may perhaps be justified in a further reduction of another half million, and may set the population at no more than one and a half millions, even at its fullest time, that is, before the pestilence (1348). But whether the number of the English and Welsh people in the fourteenth century was one and a half or two, or even two and a half millions, it is certain that the rate of population precludes the possibility of its being more than the highest estimate.' (Vol. i. p. 57.) In starting some doubts whether the highest of these estimates is not considerably below the mark, we by no means venture on more than a little hypothetical criticism. The subject is far too uncertain to admit of speaking with confidence. Our scepticism arises in some degree from consideration of the great military efforts which England, with a population supposed to have been so limited, was capable of making during the whole of the fourteenth century; and after the great pestilence of 1348 as well as before. At Sluys, in 1340, we are told of two hundred and forty English sail present in action, and of 30,000 French killed. In 1346 England sent 30,000 men to Crécy, according to Knyghton; and Sharon Turner thinks the number underrated. In 1353 (eight years after the plague) there were three English armies in the field: in Scotland, Normandy, Gascony. In 1356, 20,000 armed soldiers, besides citizens, escorted King David of Scotland to the Tower. In 1358, Edward III. is said to have taken 100,000 men to Calais. Again; the population of Scotland is now between a sixth and a seventh of that of the southern division of the island. There is no reason to suppose that Scotland was VOL. CXXVI. NO. CCLVII. E relatively more populous formerly. Take the proportion at a sixth, and take the highest conjectural number given for England by Professor Rogers: Scotland would only have had 400,000 inhabitants. But Scotland is reported to have had 45,000 men in arms at Bannockburn; 50,000 at Nevill's Cross, in 1346. Now, we are ready to make every reasonable allowance for the wild uncertainty of military computations, especially in. the Middle Ages, and to recognise the impossibility of relying on them until scrutinised by some Colenso of profane history. We are fully aware, also, that modern estimates of the proportion of armed men to population are very different from those which are applicable to feudal times, when levies en masse crossed the sea or the border, to do their forty days' service, and dispersed when their time was up. Still we repeat that, after all these circumstances are allowed for, the Great Britain which maintained such pertinacious, extensive, and desolating wars through the century in question, could hardly have been the home of so small a people as that assumed in the calculations of these volumes. These doubts of ours certainly derive additional force from the statistics of the mortality occasioned by the Black Death, concerning which great event we shall have more to say presently. Mr. Rogers believes that from one-third to one-half of the people of England perished by it. The supposition is no doubt startling at first; and the contemporary estimates which we possess are untrustworthy; but there are curious fragments of collateral testimony, which certainly tend to corroborate his view. Mr. Seebohm, in a remarkable series of papers on this special subject, contributed to the Fortnightly Review,' says that there exists statistical evidence, as reliable and clear to-day as it was five centuries ago, from which we may probably estimate the mortality in different localities; evidence which from its nature is incapable of exaggeration, and wholly free from the objections which, of necessity, 'attach even to contemporary evidence when large numbers are 'concerned.' 6 These proofs Mr. Seebohm finds in the ecclesiastical records of the time. He shows from these that in the West and East Ridings of Yorkshire more than two-thirds of all the parish ' priests' died in the years 1348 and 1349; in Nottinghamshire. half; diocese of Norwich, probably two-thirds. Assuming the accuracy of Mr. Seebohm's investigations, we really do not see how to dispute the conclusions deduced from them. The mortality among the priesthood would probably fairly average that among the people in general; for if, on the one hand, the class of society to which they belonged may be assumed to have been somewhat better guarded against the epidemic by its sanitary condition than the lowest, their avocations, on the other hand, would bring them into close contact with its virulence. If, then, half the population perished-and if Professor Rogers' enumeration before the Black Death is correctEngland after it can only have had at the outside a million and a quarter of people. And yet, as we have seen, after the first two or three years, the wars went on just as before, and there is no perceptible relaxation of military efforts. We are inclined therefore to prefer Mr. Seebohm's conjecture-though with all due reserve that a long period of comparative prosperity (and, according to Mr. Rogers, nearly thirty years of plentiful seasons) had raised the number of our people, before the pestilence, to four or five millions. It may be true that this high estimate will hardly tally with Professor Rogers' calculation as to the quantity of food consumed; but we own it appears to us (though we cannot here go into the argument) that his statements are founded rather too exclusively on wheat, and that he makes too little allowance for the probable consumption both of inferior grain and of meat. Of rye, indeed, Mr. Rogers says that 'it was grown in particular localities only, and in small quantities.' Of oatmeal, that it was used scantily, but generally for thickening soup. 'present, it was more frequently employed for food in the "north of England; indeed, the most consecutive information 'As at as to its price is derived from Cumberland.' On the whole, his conclusion evidently is that there has been no great change in the habits of the English people, as chiefly wheat-consumers. But his evidence on this subject seems very limited. Of meat he allows that it was certainly cheap.' Beef and mutton, not worth, according to his estimates, above a farthing a pound, at the time when six pounds of wheat cost a penny. But pigs were the most important kind of animal food; the necessity for using salted meat during a moiety of the year leading our forefathers to breeding them largely.' Poultry also, to judge from the price, and from the frequent recurrence of poultry-rents in the rentals of estates, must have been very common: so that the patriotic wish of the Bearnese king, that every peasant should have his fowl in the pot, was probably verified in the period before us.' Poultry-rents, indeed, were all but universal. In fact, the habits of the poorer classes in medieval England were very much the same as that which prevails in France at present; from which country, 'as is known, the greater part of the eggs come which are 'consumed in England.' On the whole, we are inclined to maintain the theory above suggested, that the population of England is rather under estimated in these pages from regarding the consumption of wheat too exclusively as the criterion of its number.* Let us now realise the general appearance of that vigorous and sturdy, though scarcely very progressive, type of society which was then established on the soil, whatever the actual numbers may have been. The midland and eastern counties were, so far as the resources of the soil and the art of husbandry permitted, fully occupied by an active and laborious population. Each manor or parish contained its complement of inhabitants, whose industry supplied them with the greater part of the necessaries of life, and who were always within easy reach of some fair or market in which they could exchange their surplus products, and procure such conveniences as they needed, or such luxuries as the general simplicity of the age allowed. The manor-house was situated in the middle of the village, and was tenanted when the lord was the owner of a single fee. But when, as was often the case, it formed a part only of some great but scattered estate, it was either shut up against the lord's periodical visit or was partly inhabited by the bailiff. Round and near the manorhouse were clustered the huts of the peasant proprietors, and of the Some animals now commonly used for food seem to have been very scarce in the fourteenth century; and among these, singularly enough, rabbits, the multiplication of which one would have expected to be very large in sandy, half-civilised districts. Nevertheless, if these statistics are to be trusted, 'these animals were so dear as to suggest, either that they were at this time confined to particular localities, from which they have subsequently spread over the whole country (a view which seems to be countenanced by the fact that the price does not increase in the later part of the period), or that they were, which we can hardly believe, rigorously and effectively preserved in the interest of the great landowners.' Rights of freewarren, at all events, seem to have been regarded as valuable and jealously maintained. Professor Rogers even doubts whether the smaller kinds of game, taken generally, were very abundant; a doubt certainly not much in keeping with common notions of Chaucer's lusty old England, such as he saw it in his 'Vision of St. Valentine's 'Day,' 'When every fowl cometh to chuse her mate, |
