| £ | s. | d. | ||||
| Sum of the tenth of the Province of Canterbury | 16,258 | 18 | 4 | |||
| Sum of the tenth of the Province of York | 4,155 | 10 | 7 | |||
| Sum total of both provinces | 20,414 | 8 | 11 | |||
| Which, multiplied by ten, will give the total value taxed | 204,144 | 9 | 2 |
The Bishop of Oxford, “as the result of a painful calculation from the ‘Taxatio,’” arrives at the following conclusion:—
Spirituals, £135,665; temporals, £74,978; total, £210,644; and the temporals of the bishops included in the total amount of temporals was £16,826.
Of the number of the clergy nearly a century later we have an exact official return. In the year 1377 a poll-tax was levied on the whole body of the clergy of England and Wales, excepting those of the counties Palatine of Durham and Chester, of twelve-pence on “every beneficed ecclesiastic, exempt and not exempt, privileged and not privileged, and all abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, monks, canons, canonesses, and other regulars of whatever order, sex, and condition, the four orders of mendicants alone excepted;” and fourpence on “every priest, deacon, sub-deacon, accolite, and those obtaining the first tonsure exceeding the age of fourteen years.”
The total number of men given in the returns is 15,238 beneficed, and 13,943 unbeneficed. If we suppose the number in the excepted counties of Durham and Chester to have been in the same proportion, we should have a total for the whole of England (Wales is not included in the return) of about 15,800 beneficed, and 14,000 unbeneficed, and a total of about 29,800. From the same return we gather that the whole population of the country at that time was about 2,065,000.[422]
