Unfortunately the records of the contest between Yarmouth and Lowestoft furnish us with no information as to the actual wealth and population of Lowestoft at this period, and we have no local records to help us in forming an estimate of either. But we are not altogether at a loss for information on these important questions. Among the decayed and fragmentary relics of the old Lay Subsidy Rolls in the Record office, we have a complete detailed return for the 1st of Edward III., and another for the 15th of Henry VIII. If these Rolls do not furnish direct information as to the actual wealth and population of the town, a comparison between them furnishes good evidence of its relative status at these two periods. Taking the Subsidy returns for 1327 from the same group of parishes, whose condition at the time of Domesday we have already noticed, we find that Yarmouth heads the list with a contribution of £18. 8. 1. Beccles follows, with a contribution of £12. 4. 9. Gorleston, with Little Yarmouth, comes next with a payment of £10. 0. 4. Then Kessingland follows with a payment of £4. 2. No other parish in the Hundred pays as much as £2. 10. Mutford, Belton, Carlton, and Corton pay £2. and upwards. Gisleham and Rushmere together pay £2. 10., and Pakefield and Kirkley are bracketed for £2. 1. Blundeston pays £1. 18., Somerleyton £1. 17., Bradwell £1. 14., and Oulton and Flixton together £1. 15. _Then comes Lowestoft_, _with the humble contribution of £1. 9._, _gathered from 29 of its inhabitants_. Lound, Fritton, Hopton, Gunton, Herringfleet, Burgh, and Ashby complete the lists with sums rising from 16s. to £1. 8. We can but infer from these returns that Lowestoft had not yet made any substantial advance upon the position she occupied in the Domesday survey. The small contribution which she is called upon to make, compared with Carlton Colville and Kessingland, proves conclusively that at the beginning of Edward III.’s reign she had not developed any trade in herrings or any other merchandise. Thirty years after (as we have already seen) the little town was of sufficient importance to be honoured by the issue of a Royal ordinance authorising her people to buy and land herrings in Kirkley Road. We can thus fix the date of the origin of Lowestoft as a town, in the modern sense of the word, within a year or two. If the Subsidy Rolls for the rest of this and the succeeding reigns were not defective, we should probably find that the assessment of Lowestoft rose rapidly during the latter half of the 14th century, and continued to rise throughout the next century, and at least the first half of the 16th century, so that at the time of the second Roll she had reached nearly, if not quite her full growth as a town of ancient times.