REVIEW OF THEIR ADMINISTRATION. 48^ will be remembered, was derived from the custom- chapter ary established taxes, without the imposition of a '-^ single new one. Indeed, the improvements in the mode of collection tended materially to lighten the burdens on the people. The accounts of the population at this early pe- increase of i i J r population riod are, for the most part, vague and unsatisfactory. Spain, in particular, has been the subject of the most absurd, though, as it seems, not incredible es- timates, sufficiently evincing the paucity of authentic data. '^^ Fortunately, however, we labor under no such embarrassment as regards Castile in Isabella's reign. By an official report to the crown on the organization of the militia, in 1492, it appears that the population of the kingdom amounted to 1,500,000 vecinos or householders ; or, allowing four and a half to a family (a moderate estimate), to 6,750,000 souls. ^^^ This census, it will be ob- served, was limited to the provinces immediately from the books of the escribania of the kingdom, fully expose the mayor de rentas, in the archives of extravagance of preceding esti- Simancas. Ibid., ubi supra. mates. 141 The pretended amount of t42 These interesting particulars population has been generally in are obtained from a memorial, pre- the ratio of the distance of the pe- pared by order of Ferdinand and riod taken, and, of course, of the Isabella, by their contador, Alonso difficulty of refutation. A few ran- de Quintanilla, on the mode of en- dom remarks of ancient writers roIHng and arming the militia, in have proved the basis for the wild- 1492 ; as a preliminary step to est hypotheses, raising the esti- which, he procured a census of the mates to the total of what the soil, actual population of the kingdom, under the highest possible cultiva- It is preserved in a volume entitled tion, would be capable of support- Relaciones tocantes a la junta de la ing. Even for so recent a period Hermandad, in that rich national as Isabella's time, the estimate repository, the archives of Siman- commonly received does not fall cas. See a copious extract, apud below eighteen or twenty millions. Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., torn. vi. The official returns, cited in the Apend. 12. text, of the most populous portion
