Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/21

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Year
.
Quarter E.
Suburb.

Total.
Reference in
The Records of The
Borough of
Leicester.
N. W. E. S.
                  Box 3,
1 1269 59 55 147 82 80 423 I.128-145 Roll 86
2 1270 66 62 123 62 79 392 " " 26
3 1271 73 65 153 83 94 468 " " 64
4 1274 57 47 100 82 75 361 I. 148. " 68
5 1276 63 58 149 65 93 428 I. 150. " 70
6 1280 41 49 106 63 60 319 I. 184. " 75
7 1288 66 56 131 63 61 387 I.208-211 " 69
Averages : 425 402 909 500 542 = 2778
60 57 130 71 78 = 396
——v—— ————v————
117 279 = 396

(The list of inhabitants of the Suburb is missing in the first roll, so the average of the six other rolls has been taken; and in the seventh roll the N. and W. quarters are lumped together, the taxpayers in the two quarters amounting to 132, half of whom have been here allotted to each quarter.)

It will be seen that there were only 117 taxpayers in the North-western half of the town out of a total of nearly 400. That is to say, not a third of the population lived in that large part of the town which lay above the High Cross, while more than two-thirds lived in the far smaller South-eastern part and the East Suburb. In later times calculations are more difficult on account of the altered arrangement for dividing the borough; but undoubtedly the North-western half remained all but empty, while the South-east was crowded.

The lanes in the upper part of the town, known as the "Back Lanes," where houses were once plentiful, became deserted for at least three centuries after the sack of 1173. They led chiefly to orchards and closes, and stretched so far south that St. Peter's Lane is described as one of them. The burial place of Roger Goldsmith, who was stated to have been buried in the "Back Lanes," was near Bond Street, formerly Parchment Lane. The Butt Close, where archery was practised, lay by the

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