List of Towns and Cities in England By Historical Population - Medieval England

Medieval England

By the start of the fourteenth century the structure of most English towns had changed considerably since the Norman Conquest. A number of towns were granted market status and had grown around local trades. Also notable is the reduction in importance of Winchester, the Anglo-Saxon capital.

Although not a direct measure of population, the lay subsidy records of 1334 can be used as a measure of both a settlement's size and stature and the table gives the 30 largest towns and cities in England according to that report. The lay subsidy, an early form of poll tax, however, omitted a sizeable proportion of the population.

In 1377 the first true poll tax was levied in which everyone over the age of 14 who was not exempt was required to pay a groat to the Crown. The records taken listed the name and location of everyone who paid the tax and so give an excellent measure of the population at the time, although assumptions need to be made about the proportion of the population who were under 14, generally taken to be around a third.

No strong information for population exists for the fifteenth century, with most modern estimates relying on analyses of baptism records. For the sixteenth century, the lay subsidy returns of 1523-1527 once again provide an excellent measure of households and adult population from which the overall populations can be estimated. The table shows the prosperity of East Anglia, principally due to the wool trade, accounting for eleven of the top thirty (whereas only one, Norwich, makes the top thirty largest towns and cities today).

All population values given in each of the tables below must therefore be taken as an estimate.