Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T15:26:57.467Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Population Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

J. C. Russell
J. C. Russell
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Geographers and city planners, endeavoring to explain or foretell changes in urban population, sometimes use an approach called basic-nonbasic. A basic factor is one which brings in money from outside of the city and which usually sells its products beyond the city limits. The nonbasic factor furnishes services and supplies to the city. Thus a factory would normally be a basic factor, while grocery stores, barber shops, and similar institutions, together with most professional groups, would be nonbasic. A factory employing a thousand workmen would add to the city not merely the workmen's families but about an equal group of nonbasic families, perhaps a total of six or seven thousand persons. This concept is a very useful one in modern society and is worth testing for its possibilities for medieval settlements.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1964 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For modern use, see, for instance, Webb, J. W., “Basic Concepts in the Analysis of Small Urban Centers of Minnesota,” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, XLIX (Mar. 1959), 55–72, especially 61–63;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAlexander, J. W., “The Basic-Nonbasic Concept of Urban Economic Functions,” Economic Geography, XXX (July 1954), 246–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 References “D. B.,” following, are to Domesday-book seu Liber Censualis Willelmi Primi regis Angliae … (London, 1783, 1816).Google Scholar A series of geographical studies of Domesday is referred to as follows (each being published at Cambridge by the Cambridge Univ. Press in the year indicated): Darby, Eastern England, for Darby, H. C., The Domesday Geography of Eastern England (2d ed., 1957);Google Scholar Darby and Terrett, Midland England, for Darby, and Terrett, I. B., The Domesday Geography of Midland England (1954);Google Scholar Darby and Maxwell, Northern England, for Darby, and Maxwell, I. S., The Domesday Geography of Northern England (1962);Google Scholar Darby and Campbell, Southeast England for Darby, and Campbell, Eila M. J., The Domesday Geography of Southeast England (1962).Google Scholar

3 The size of English villages of Domesday can be seen in my British Medieval Population (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1948), pp. 306–14,Google Scholar and may be compared with the larger villages of Spain in my “The Medieval Monedatge of Aragon and Valencia,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CVI (Dec. 1962), 500–1.Google Scholar

4 The map was originally published in and is reproduced by permission of the journal of Regional Research: it was drawn by Widdison, Jerold G.. For these, see my “The Metropolitan City Region of the Middle Ages” in that Journal, II (1960), 55–70.Google Scholar

5 Inman, A. H., Domesday and Feudal Statistics (London, 1900), p. 14.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 22. Richardson, H. G., “The Medieval Plowteam,” History, XXVI (Mar. 1942), 287–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarMaitland, F. W., Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1898), p. 403.Google Scholar

7 D. B., II, 283, 283b. There were also four freemen of the king there; p. 284b. The villani were serfs, bordars were small holders much like cotters, and the servi were supposed to be slaves; but see my “Short, Dark Folk of England,” Social Forces, XXIV (Mar. 1946), 340–47.Google Scholar

8 D. B., II, 319b-320. There are other references to Eye which bring the number of landholders to about 145 to 147. See Darby, Eastern England, pp. 169, 195.

9 D. B., II, 379. He also set up a market, but no value is given.

10 Victoria County History, “Suffolk,” II, 72–73; Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales (London: Longmans, Green, 1953), p. 65. It was established about 1080 and had four monks in 1279.Google Scholar

11 D. B., II, 372 ff.; Lobel, M. D., The Borough of Bury St. Edmunds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), pp. 12–13; Darby, Eastern England, pp. 197–99.Google Scholar

12 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 61.

13 Lobel, Bury St. Edmunds, p. 12.

14 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 61; Victoria County History, “Suffolk,” II, 69.

15 D. B., I, 192.

16 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 65.

17 Maitland, F. W., Township and Borough (Cambridge, 1898), p. 213;Google Scholar Russell, British Medieval Population, p. 142.

18 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 58.

19 Chronicon monasterii de Abingdon, Stevenson, J., ed. (Rolls Series; London, 1858), II, 237–43.Google Scholar Less helpful data are given in II, 299 ff. This and subsequent references to the Roll Series pertain to Return Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, printed in London for the Public Record Office of Great Britain in years as designated.

20 By subtracting as follows from the 136 (D. B., I, 58b, Bertune): 78 agriculturists (37 plows at 2.1); one basic group of 12 for 58½ shillings for mills and fisheries and another 12 as nonbasic; then some 36 persons, together with 10 merchants, or a total of 36 to 46, is left as support for the monks of Abingdon Abbey, who should number about the same. Presumably Abingdon was too close to Oxford to have more than a rudimentary market.

21 Cartularium monasterii de Rameseia, Hart, W. H. and Lyons, P. A., eds. (Rolls Series; London, 1893), III, 236–41.Google Scholar The date is the commonly held one shared by the editors. The settlement at Ramsey is apparently not included in Domesday. Darby, Eastern England, p. 321.

22 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 74.

23 Ibid., p. 65.

24 D. B., I, 175b, offers some interesting data for conjecture. The 27 bordars should include 15 agriculturists (for 7 plows) and 12 others (6 basic for mills worth 30s and their 6 nonbasic). This leaves those paying 20s for census. If the census was a shilling apiece (often the tax of burgages, or city lots), there should have been twenty persons, which should have been nonbasic for an equal number of monks.

25 Landboc sive Registrum … de Winchelcumba (Exeter, 1892), I, 363–66.Google Scholar

26 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 81.

27 Chronica monasterii de Melsa, Bond, E. A., ed. (Rolls Series; London, 1868), III, Ixvi-lxxii.Google Scholar

28 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 111. In 1336, it had 42 monks and 7 lay brothers.

29 Cheney, C. R., English Bishops' Chanceries, 1100–1250 (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1950), pp. 1–21, especially 5.Google Scholar

30 A Roll of the Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford, Webb, John, ed. (London: Camden Society, 1855), especially pp. 166–72, 194–97.Google Scholar

31 Russell, British Medieval Population, p. 136.

32 D. B., I, 17, 23. Fishburne manor was very close to the west of Chichester, so that the city's agricultural population was small. See also Darby and Campbell, Southeast England, pp. 463–66.

33 Under “Clare, Richard de” in the Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1908). He was also known as son of Count Gilbert or FitzGilbert and even as Richard of Tonbridge.Google Scholar

34 D. B., II, 389b.

35 Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, p. 84.

36 D. B., I, 183.

37 The bovarii were oxherds or cowherds. On Clifford, see also Darby and Terrett, Midland England, pp. 73, 103. A very small mill was there.

38 D. B,, I, 179b, 180, 183b. For Ralph de Mortimer's career, see account in Dictionary of National Biography. Darby and Terrett, Midland England, p. 104.

39 Mills, Mabel H., “The Medieval Shire-House,” in Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, Davies, J. Conway, ed. (London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1957), pp. 254–71;Google ScholarFowler, G. H., “Rolls from the Office of the Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Berkshire, 1332–4,” in Quarto Memoirs of the Bedfordshire Historical Society, III (1929), especially 2–8.Google Scholar

40 D. B., I, 56b, 62b; Darby and Campbell, Southeast England, pp. 279–80.

41 Red Book of the Exchequer, Hall, Hubert, ed. (Rolls Series; London, 1896), III, cclxxxix–ccxciii, 809–13.Google Scholar It is translated in English Historical Documents, Douglas, D. C. and Greenaway, G. W., eds. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1953), II, 422–27 and bibliography.Google Scholar See also White, G. H., “The Household of the Norman Kings,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, XXX (1948), 127–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 English Historical Documents, II, 390.

43 D. B., I, 232b and 236 for Oadby; I, 232 and 236b for Wigston Magna.

44 D. B., I, 231b, 237.

45 See Table 1 and explanation upon it. Five per cent would be a shilling in a pound.

46 On Droitwich, see Berry, E. K., “The Borough of Droitwich and its Salt Industry, 1215–1700,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal, VI (1957–58), 39–61. Darby and Terrett, Midland England, pp. 251–56.Google Scholar

47 The earl is said to have had 51½ (D. B., I, 172b), which should have been a third, as in a wich in Cheshire (D. B., I, 268).

48 Evidently carried away to their own landed property; it was stated as belonging to certain manors of the lords.

49 Victoria County History, “Worcestershire,” III, 78. Two parishes in Wich; the others at Witton and Gosford.

50 Berry, Borough of Droitwich, pp. 42–43, 51. The vats increased from between 310 and 320 in 1086 to 400 in the sixteenth century.

51 Lay Subsidy Roll for the County of Worcester, circ. 1280, Bund, J. W. Willis, ed. (Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1893), pp. 7–8, 23–24; Lay Subsidy …for 1327, F. J. Eld, ed. (1895), pp. 15–16, 37–38.Google Scholar

52 D. B., 1, 172. The volume of the product of these was a little above average: 23 mitts of salt to the salina when the average was 19.

53 D. B., I, 265b. A Cheshire place, Actun, had a “quiet house” for making salt crystalize properly. For conditions, see Berry, Borough of Droitwich, pp. 48–51. The customs of salt making in Cheshire are given in D. B., I, 268; they are probably much like those of Droitwich.

54 Osbert Fitz Herbert had 13 burgesses with 26 saline. Gilbert Turoldi had 1 burgess to 2 saline. D. B., I, 176b, for both. Berry, Borough of Droitwich, pp. 48–49.

55 Victoria County History, “Worcestershire,” III, 78. Also n. 51.

56 D. B., I.

The list of persons or religious houses to which eels were owed included: 6 fishers owing 3,500 to William Warenne (196b); 1 fisher for 5,000 to Bury St. Edmunds (192); 8 fishers for 5,260 to Ramsey Abbey (192b); 3 for 4,000 to Croyland Abbey (193); 2 for 14,000 to Ely (192); and a miscellaneous obligation for 1,500 (probably to Ely; 192).

57 King John arranged for some shipping by sea there just before his death. Holt, J. C., “King John's Disaster in the Wash,” in Nottingham Medieval Studies, V (1961), 75–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 D. B., I, 52. Tait knew that it was an oyster center but called it largely agricultural., Tait, James, The Medieval English Borough (Manchester: Univ. of Manchester Press, 1936), p. 67.Google Scholar

59 For the herring fisheries off the coast of France from 1030 to 1170, see M. A. Valenciennes, “Histoire naturelle du hareng,” extract from Histoire naturelle des poissons (Paris, 1847).Google Scholar

60 D. B., II, 283b, 369b.

61 Kessingland, D. B., II, 283, 407; for others, 407, 407b. Southwold also seems to have had too few men for its quota of 25,000. D. B., II, 371b.

62 D. B., I, 1.

63 D. B., I, 345.

64 D. B., II; Ely Abbey, 213; Earl Alan, 149b; William de Warenne, 160; Roger Bigot, 173; R. de Bello Fago, 226; Robert Toni, 236; Hermer de Ferrers, 274b. The proportions of the Ely holding to the others are about the same.

65 D. B., I, 104; III, 177.

68 D. B., II, 330b. Kelsale is suggested by Darby, Eastern England, p. 202.

67 Registrum Malmesburiense, Brewer, J. S. and Martin, C. T., eds. (Rolls Series; London, 1880), II, xxxi. Its alternative name was Kairdunburgh.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., II, xxxi. The editors note that Bishop Leuterius granted the site as “terra ilia que vocabulum est Maeldunesburg” rather than as manor. Eulogium HistOTiarum, Haydon, F. S., ed. (Rolls Series; London, 1858), I, 225.Google Scholar

69 D. B., I, 67a. It had 64 villeins, 7 cotters, 15 cosces (cotters), 16 servi for a total of 102. The 64 plows would more than employ this group. The eight mills were valued at £.8 12s. 6d. which should have indicated the employment of at least 34 millers who probably lived in Malmesbury.

70 D. B., I, 64b. Long afterward, the inhabitants of Malmesbury were to keep up the borough wall. Registrum Malmesburiense, I, 136.