# Mediaeval Leicester/Chapter 10

X.
THE POPULATION.
THERE is little doubt that at the date of the Domesday Survey, Leicester was a flourishing town. Historians have been misled by the alleged total destruction of Leicester, which is said to have occurred in the year 1068, and consequently the borough has been represented as being, at the date of the Domesday Survey, in a ruinous and depopulated state. The only record of this supposed destruction is contained in the Register of Leicester Abbey, the M.S. of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. But there is every reason to think that the destruction to which the Abbey scribe referred did not occur in 1068. On the contrary Mr. J. H. Round assigns it, for various good reasons, and "without a shadow of doubt," to the rebellion of Ivo de Grantmesnil in 1101. Moreover, of the 322 houses registered in Domesday book, as then standing within the borough of Leicester., four only are said to have been then "waste," or uninhabited, — a fact which is quite inconsistent with a recent sack. These tenements were those held of the King in capite, and there may have been others. However, on the basis of five persons to each of 318 houses, the number of the occupants of those tenements would be about 1600, and they formed the great bulk of the community. The whole of the population would not exceed 2000.
Two thousand inhabitants may seem few for a town of any importance, but it must be remembered that the whole of the population of England did not at that time reach two millions, and no town had more than a few thousand occupants. Mr. F. W. Maitland, multiplying the "recorded men" in Domesday by five, makes the total population of England at that time only 1,375,000. Winchester, one of the largest towns, is estimated to have contained between 6000 and 8000. Colchester had over 2000.
It was not long, however, before members of the old families began to return, and settlers from other towns were also attracted to the place. The earliest rolls of the Guild Merchant, which date from 1196, give some evidence on this point. We find men registered there, as entering the Guild at the end of the 12th century and later, whose names betray their foreign origin, such as "Brete" (the Breton), and "Voncq" (from the Ardennes); or else their names show that they were strangers to Leicester who came from other parts of the island, as in the case of "de Anglia," and "Norreis" (the Northerner). Many have come from villages of Leicestershire and Rutland; others from Warwickshire, and the Forest of Arden; others from towns like Northampton, Peterborough and Lincoln; from Stratford, Wenlock, Winchester, Carlisle and Lichfield.
By the beginning of the thirteenth century the town was evidently recovering from its grievous wound, but the population was probably far smaller than it had been a hundred years earlier.
It was not, indeed, until the thirteenth century had fully dawned, that the Boroughs of England began to obtain such a measure of independence and freedom as rendered possible the gathering of wealth and the growth of population. The full stream of prosperity did not set in for many a year, but even before ​1300 some of the worst evils which beset the life of mediaeval towns had given way to better conditions. Leicester never lagged behind other towns in reforming zeal, and its progress was comparatively rapid. In the year 1269 this town appears in the King's subsidy roll amongst the richest boroughs, inferior in its contributions only to London, the Cinque Ports, York, Lincoln, Yarmouth, Worcester and Winchester. Thompson estimated that in 1300 Leicester contained "not more than 5000 or 6000 inhabitants," but this is certainly an exaggeration, for it is not thought that the largest boroughs at that time could muster more than 4000 or 5000 inhabitants. There is little direct evidence on this point, but it may be noted that a tallage roll of the year 1271 contains 468 contributors, a roll of 1276 contains 428 names, and a roll of 1286 contains 387. A tallage roll of 1306 has 344 names. Some persons may be included among the tax-payers, as possessing goods in Leicester, who did not reside there, but they would be few. At any rate we cannot place the total number of taxpaying householders at Leicester in 1300 at much over 400. On the basis of five persons to a house the tax-paying householders and their families would thus amount to about 2000. To these must be added the non-taxpaying householders, with their families, the monks and clerics, retainers, paupers, prisoners and other waifs and strays, as well as the vast establishment maintained at the Castle. The numbers living at the Castle can only be guessed at, but some indication of the princely scale upon which it was conducted at this period may be gathered from the annual expenditure of the Earl's steward, which amounted in the year 1313 to £7358 9s. — equivalent to nearly £90,000 of present money. Fifteen hundred of "the Earl's great horses," which, we are told, were always kept in the stables, must have given employment to a large number of persons. The religious houses, too, were well occupied. We may estimate that these various elements might contribute, perhaps, nearly 1000 souls. The whole population of the town probably approached 3000.
​In the course of the next half century, Leicester, like the other trading towns of England, increased in wealth and population. The tallage rolls show an average of more than 450 taxpayers, and that for the year 1342 contains as many as 550 names. Before the visitation of the Black Death in 1348 — 1349, there must have been more than 3000 persons within the town. The community had become so numerous, and the civic life of Leicester had been so firmly established, when that calamity fell, that its effects were not so disastrous as they were in poorer and less advanced towns. The only contemporary account of the plague which devastated Leicester in 1348–1349 is that of Henry of Knighton, a canon of Leicester Abbey, who thus describes the ravages which it made throughout the county. "The terrible death rolled on into all parts, according to the course of the sun, and at Leicester, in the little parish of St. Leonard, there died more than 380, in the parish of Holy Cross" (St. Martin's) "more than 400, in that of St. Margaret, Leicester, more than 700; and so in every parish great numbers."
It has been said that this epidemic destroyed more than one-third of the population of the town — a calculation based, presumably, on a statement of Thompson's, that "two thousand deaths, at the lowest computation, must have taken place at Leicester, and that, too, in a population probably not exceeding 6000." But there is reason to conclude that at that time the population was really under 3500.
If we relied solely upon the Records of the Borough we should hardly be aware that any such catastrophe had occurred, still less that it had been as serious and far-reaching as the canon of Leicester Abbey asserts. On turning to a tallage roll of the year 1336, one finds there the names of some 460 taxpayers of Leicester, and a tallage roll made eighteen years later in 1354, six years after the first and most severe visitation of the plague, contains very nearly the same number. Moreover, the amount contributed in 1354 is only thirty shillings less than in 1336. The town thus appears, on the surface at any rate, to have been hardly less populous and wealthy after 1348 than it was before. What is the explanation of this? That Henry of Knighton's figures are untrustworthy, may, of course, be taken for granted; ​but at the same time it is quite evident from his account that the epidemic at Leicester was most severe, and had serious consequences. There are two factors which may partly explain the town's rapid recovery. In the first place, it has been observed that the mortality was greatest "among the meaner sort of the people," so that it would not fall as heavily upon a community of well-to-do traders as on agriculturalists. And, in the second place, the fame of Leicester's prosperity was at this period sufficiently wide-spread to attract fresh comers to take the place of those who fell in the course of the epidemic.
An analysis of three of the tallage rolls, those for 1318, 1336 and 1354, gives the following results bearing upon this point.
The number of names on the roll of 13 18 is about 460; in 1336 it is 460, and in 1354 about 455. Of the names given in 1336, no less than 127 occur also in the roll of 1318, identical both as to Christian and sur-name, and, generally speaking, they may be said to betoken the same persons as those who were living at Leicester eighteen years before. Again, 167 persons on the 1336 roll had family names which occur in the 1318 roll, but different Christian names, and they may be taken to be, as a rule, members of the families which were settled in Leicester in 1318, There were thus on the 1336 roll something like 290 persons who, or whose families, had been settled in the town eighteen years before that time. The names in 1336 that were quite new in Leicester were only 166.
Now if we pass over another eighteen years, and turn to the roll of 1354, the result of a comparison of that with the roll of 1336 is as follows: The identical names are only 58, the names identical as to family are 145, and the new names are no fewer than 247. Thus the old settlers were then about 203, and the new settlers considerably outnumbered them; whereas in 1336 the old settlers were very greatly more numerous than the new comers. Leicester therefore, it is clear, made up its losses in well-to-do taxpayers by drawing to itself settlers from without. It is even possible to learn, to some extent, whence ​they came, for of the 247 new comers nearly half bore names which indicate their place of origin.
Sixty-five of these names are derived, as might be expected, from villages in the counties of Leicester and Rutland, and 27 more from villages lying in the neighbouring counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, Northampton, Warwick, Stafford and Derby. A few come from far-away villages in Lancashire and Northumberland, and the remainder from various towns, among which are London, Liverpool, Dublin, Ely, Coventry, Northampton, Nottingham, Stamford, Tiverton, Lynn, Peterborough, Wellington, Leek, Huntingdon, Stafford, Dunstable, Chester, Grantham, and the French town of Lille.
Nevertheless, although the check given to Leicester's prosperity by the Black Death was not lasting, there must have been a large falling off in the number of inhabitants.
In the year 1377 an ungraduated poll-tax of one groat a head was levied upon all English subjects, except beggars, over fourteen years of age. The number of persons contributing to this tax in the borough of Leicester was returned as 2,101. If one-third is added for the estimated number of persons under 14, the population would, on this evidence, be 2,800. Some may have evaded this unpopular impost, which was soon openly resisted, and the results of the poll tax are no longer considered wholly trustworthy guides to population. Yet it may perhaps be gathered from this return that the population of Leicester was smaller than it had been thirty years before. Sixteen English towns contributed more to the tax than Leicester did. And in 1398, when "the well-beloved Mayor and the honest men of the town of Leicester freely and voluntarily lent one hundred marks" to King Richard the Second, there were eighteen towns which provided the Crown with larger sums. It may be concluded that the population was somewhat lower in 1400 than it had been in 1300.
With the new century the prospects of Leicester became brighter, and for a generation or two the borough increased in wealth and repute, and doubtless in the numbers of energetic citizens who carried on its trade. Unfortunately almost all the ​municipal annals and accounts are lacking after 1380 for the best part of a hundred years. It is evident, however, that before the closing years of the 15th century a change took place, and fortune ceased to smile upon the town's progress. In 1492 the householders on whom the King's tenth was levied did not amount to 250, and there can be little doubt that the population was then dwindling. The town fell, indeed, owing to various causes, into a state of poverty and decay, which lasted nearly a hundred years. Many other English boroughs were then in the same plight, but the Leicester people themselves said that all their troubles were due to the introduction of strangers, who were allowed to trade in the borough to the detriment of the old burghers who paid the taxes. Their opinions on the subject may be gathered from a verbose petition which they addressed to the Earl of Southampton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the year 1540. They complained that "where before this time it hath been used and accustomed within the said town that no foreigners dwelling out of the said town should sell by retail any manner of wares or merchandise but only victuallers for victuals within the said town of Leicester except in the time of the fairs there and then to sell by retail all things: by which good custom the said town was by long time well maintained in wealth unto now, of late within the space of 40 years last past or thereabouts, that foreigners dwelling out of the said town have been suffered to sell wares and merchandise within the said town by retail; and by reason that foreigners have such liberty many persons have withdrawn themselves from inhabiting within the said town and daily do more and more since they have been suffered to sell by retail within the said town of Leicester as the inhabitants thereof do, so that the greater part of the High Street of the said town within the said 40 years is gone to ruin and decay, and other places of the said town likewise not only decayed but utterly desolate and now fallen in great poverty to the loss of our sovereign lord the King and the decay of the said town and more is like to do unless your lordship's favour and honourable goodness herein unto them be shewed."
​In 1564 the number of families in the town of Leicester, as officially returned to the Archdeacon, was only 338; and in 1580 the number of able persons mustered "of the body of the town of Leicester," were but 600 and odd. In 1587 235 houses that had belonged to dissolved colleges, &c., and 406 "bays," or parts of houses under one gable, were "in decay." In one of the many petitions which were drafted for presentation to the Queen about this time, the Corporation appealed to her "for the better relief of 4,000 of your loving subjects." But it is doubtful if the actual population really reached this figure. Throsby's estimate of 3,000 for the year 1558, and 3,480 for 1600, based upon the statistics of deaths, would seem to be nearer the mark. At any rate, we may safely conclude that, when the 17th century opened, the inhabitants of the town were not more than in 1500, and probably hardly reached 4,000.
Recurring visitations of the plague were met by better sanitary measures for coping with the epidemic; a policy of isolating infected areas and cases did much to prevent the disease spreading; and yet the further progress of Leicester was undoubtedly much retarded by this scourge, which in 1610-11 claimed very many victims. According to the register of All Saints, more than 600 persons died from it in that year at Leicester. Some time later the devastation of civil war, and the calamity of a great siege did far less to impair the population, which by the year 1664 considerably increased. The Leicester Hearth Tax Returns for Lady Day, 1663, show rather more than 600 occupied houses, which would hardly give a population much exceeding 3,000, but these returns were less complete than those of 1664, which have been transcribed and published by Mr. Henry Hartopp. It appears from the latter that at that time Leicester contained about 889 occupied houses, and, bearing in mind that the tax was not imposed upon the poorest cottages, we may estimate the number of the inhabitants to have been somewhere about 4,000.
​But the critical turning point in the long history of Leicester was near at hand. Towards the close of the 17th century the stocking-frame was introduced into the town, and the manufacture of hosiery very soon became established upon a comparatively large scale. It was estimated by Thompson that in 1700 the town of Leicester contained 6,000 inhabitants, and, although this may be an exaggeration, there is little doubt that a rapid increase had already set in. In the course of the next hundred years the population became at least three times as large as it had ever been. The return made to Parliament in 1800 showed that the number of inhabited houses at that period was 3,205, of uninhabited only 15. The Leicester families were 3,668, consisting of 7,921 males and 9,032 females, in all 16,953.
Thus, after remaining through many centuries a little community of from two to four thousand souls, the city of Leicester began to develop from a small country town into a densely-populated centre of modern commerce. Ever since 1800 its rate of increase has been maintained with a healthy regularity, and the following returns of the Census show with what irresistible steadiness its transformation has been effected:
| 1801 | . . | 16,953 |
| 1811 | . . | 23,146 |
| 1821 | . . | 30,877 |
| 1831 | . . | 40,517 |
| 1841 | . . | 50,853 |
| 1851 | . . | 60,584 |
| 1861 | . . | 68,056 |
| 1871 | . . | 95,084 |
| 1881 | . . | 122,376 |
| 1891 | . . | 142,051 |
| 1901 | . . | 211,579 |
| 1911 | . . | 227,222 |
* ↑ Doering's calculation, 3,500, is wrongly based on the number of names found in tallage-rolls for three separate years.
* ↑ Most of these buildings, no doubt, were some of the 414 houses unroofed or overthrown by the great tempest of 1563 which had not been restored.