196 THE WAR FINANCES OF HENRY V April inhabitants of England and Wales are estimated at 2,500,000.* During the period 1416-22 the annual taxation averaged £135,023, or a trifle less than 13d. per head. Of this the direct taxation due to the war averaged £27,365 annually or about two and two-thirds pence per head. At this time a carpenter's daily wage varied from four and one-half to sixpence. 2 In Normandy the population in 1328 is estimated at one and a quarter millions. 3 It seems possible that, to make allowance for the Black Death, this figure should be halved in considering conditions in the early fifteenth century. Without entering upon the controversial question of the recuperative powers of mediaeval populations, it must be admitted that the recurrence of wars in Normandy during the fourteenth century, and the return of the plague, 4 would have seriously retarded any return to the figures of 1328. In March 1421 Henry V levied 100,000 livres tournois of the ' taille ' voted in January at the rate of 20 s.t. per hearth. 5 Inasmuch as the parish rolls which we possess show, in regard to the collection of this ' taille ', that the number of livres levied on a parish corresponded to the number of house- holders named in the roll, notwithstanding the inequality of the sums paid by each, 6 it seems apparent that Henry, presumably advised by the Norman estates, estimated that there were 100,000 hearths subject to the ' fuage '. This seems a very low estimate when we consider that in 1328 there were 280,000 hearths in the Norman ' bailliages ', not including Alencon. 7 The ravages of war and pestilence must indeed have been heavy to have reduced the population by nearly two-thirds. Averaging at the customary ratio of four and a half persons to the hearth 8 the English estimate would indicate about 450,000 people. A conjectural estimate of the numbers of those not subject to ' fuage ', nobility, clergy, mendicants, &c, can scarcely be raised above 600,000, 9 which is an approach to half the population of 1 This is Seebohm's estimate based on the poll-tax of 1377: see Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381, app. ii, p. 162 f. ; Fortnightly Review, ii. 153 Thorold Rogers, ibid. iii. 191 ; History of Agriculture ajnd Prices in England, i. 57, iv. 131 ; Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 331, n. 4 ; Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 130. 2 Traill, Social England, ii. 543-4. 3 See Paroisses et Feux des Bailliages et Senechaussees de France, a list drawn up for the use of the royal officials of finance in 1328, published by Dureau de la Malle in Bibliotheque de IE cole des Chartes, ii. 17, and discussed by him in Mem. de V Acad, des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres, xiv, 2 me partie, p. 36. For discussion of the whole problem see Levasseur, La Population Francaise, i. 155 f., 169. 4 See Coville, Recherches sur la Misere en Normandie au Temps de Charles VI. 5 Roles de Brequigny, 925. 6 See above, p. 190, n. 4. ' Levasseur, i. 156-7. 8 Ibid. pp. 159-64. 9 The distribution of tailleable population may be inferred from the apportionment of the tax by ' bailliages ' January 1424 : Rouen, 25 per cent. ; Caux, 13*375 ; fivreux, 4-5; Caen, 21-25; Cotentin, 17-5: Alencon, 12-5; Gisors, 2-875: Mantes, 1-5;
