2. At the time of the Norman Conquest the whole population of England only numbered about 2,000,000 people; and in the time of King Henry VII it was only 4,000,000; so that, in the course of 400 years, the population had only doubled itself. 3. The people were not crowded into the towns. For instance, in the time of King Edward III, Colchester was one of the large towns, yet it had only 350 houses, in which 3000 people lived, all told. There were only nine larger towns in the country at that time. 4. The bulk of the people were living in the villages, in the various manors, not in the towns. Many things prevented the population from growing very rapidly--disease, famine, and war kept it down. Death was the punishment for a very large number of offences, so that it is not to be wondered at that the population did not increase very fast. 5. The population was divided into two distinct classes--those who were =clergy=, or =clerks=, and those who were not. By "clergy" we understand, in these days, "ministers of religion"; but the word had a very different meaning in the Middle Ages. 6. In early Saxon times religion and learning were very closely related. Colleges and monasteries were centres of learning, and bishops, abbots, priests, and monks took the lead in matters in which a knowledge of reading and writing was required. Folk who had a leaning towards learning naturally became connected with colleges or monasteries. They began as scholars, and then were admitted, or =ordained=, to one of the lower orders of the ministry--often when they were still only boys. 7. There are many thousands of boys to-day who are choir-boys. In early times those admitted to such an office as that had to be ordained, or set apart for the purpose, by the bishop. That ordaining made them =clerks= or clergy; and they were under the authority of the bishop or his officers. If they did wrong, they were tried and punished in the =bishop's court=. 8. In the course of years there grew up, side by side, two different sets of courts of justice, the =Church Courts= and the =King's Courts=, which were guided by different laws. The laws which ruled the Church Courts were much more merciful than those which ruled the civil or King's Courts. Death was the punishment for almost every offence tried in the King's Courts and in the Manor Courts; but in the Church Courts the punishments were much less severe, and the culprit had a much better chance of "turning over a new leaf". 9. If a man was brought before the King's Court charged with a crime, he could call for a book. If he could read a few sentences, that was taken to show that he was a clerk, and he could claim to be tried by the Church Court. That is, he could claim "benefit of clergy".