[241] Camden’s Britannia, ed. Gough, II. 9.
[242] Rickman, Abstract of the Population Returns of 1831. London, 1832. Introduction, p. 11.
[243] Stow’s Survey, p. 392.
[244] The population of London is stated on good authority, that of its archdeacon, in a letter to Pope Innocent III. (Petri Blessensis Opera omnia, ed. Giles, vol. II. p. 85), to have been 40,000 about the years 1190-1200, a period of great expansion or activity. By the usual reckoning of the poll-tax in 1377 the population would have been 44,770; and in the year 1349 it was probably not far from those numbers. This matter comes up again in the next chapter.
[245] Memorials of London in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, edited from the Archives of the City, A.D. 1246-1419, by H. T. Riley. Lond. 1868, p. 219.
[246] Ibid., pp. 239-40.
[247] Blomefield, History of Norfolk, III. 93.
[248] Peter of Blois, who as archdeacon of London was in a position to know, gives in his letter to the pope the number of parish churches in the City at 120.
[249] Popham, “Subsidy Roll of 51 Edward III.,” in Archæologia, VII. (1785) p. 337.
[250] Itineraria, et cet. ed. Nasmith, Cantab. 1778, p. 344. See also Weever, Funeral Monuments, p. 862, according to whom the record of the great mortality was on a chronological table hanging up in the church.