-------------------------------------- | Taxed |Estimated | |Population ------------------|--------|---------- London | 23,314 | 44,770 York | 7248 | 13,590 Bristol | 6345 | 11,904 Plymouth | 4837 | 9069 Coventry | 4817 | 9032 Norwich | 3952 | 7410 Lincoln | 3412 | 6399 Sarum | 3226 | 6048 Lynn | 3127 | 5863 Colchester | 2955 | 5540 Beverley | 2663 | 4993 Newcastle-on-Tyne | 2647 | 4963 Canterbury | 2574 | 4826 Bury St Edmunds | 2442 | 4580 Oxford | 2357 | 4420 Gloucester | 2239 | 4198 Leicester | 2101 | 3939 Shrewsbury | 2082 | 3904 Yarmouth | 1941 | 3640 Hereford | 1903 | 3568 Cambridge | 1722 | 3230 Ely | 1722 | 3230 Exeter | 1560 | 2925 Hull | 1557 | 2920 Worcester | 1557 | 2920 Ipswich | 1507 | 2825 Nottingham | 1447 | 2713 Northampton | 1447 | 2713 Winchester | 1440 | 2700 Stamford | 1218 | 2284 Newark | 1178 | 2209 Wells | 1172 | 2198 Ludlow | 1172 | 2198 Southampton | 1152 | 2160 Derby | 1046 | 1961 Lichfield | 1024 | 1920 Chichester | 869 | 1630 Boston | 814 | 1526 Carlisle | 678 | 1271 Bath | 570 | 1070 Rochester | 570 | 1070 Dartmouth | 506| 949 -------------------------------------- That this indirect census was taken on a declining population may be inferred from the language of contemporaries. In the year of the poll-tax (1377), Richard II. addressed certain questions to Wyclif concerning the papal exactions of tribute; the reformer’s reply gives as the second objection to the tribute “that the people decreases by reason of (_praetextu_) the withdrawal of this treasure, which should be spent in England[383].” In the political poems of the time there are numerous references to the pestilences and famines. One of these doggerel productions, “On the Council of London,” 1382, contains a clear reference to a decrease of the people: “In nos pestilentia saeva jam crescit, Quod virorum fortium jam populus decrescit[384].” These general expressions in writings of the time will appear the more credible after we have carried the history of plague and other forms of epidemic sickness down through a whole generation from 1349. The Epidemics following the Black Death.