ABSTRACT
The demographic structure of a pre-industrial society is arguably more crucial than its social or economic structure, yet until recently most historians of Tudor England gave the topic very cursory treatment. Among their reasons seem to have been an understandable reluctance to venture into another discipline, and their assumption that population has historically been a 'dependent variable'. In other words, demographic fluctuations were conceived as dependent on changes in society, law, the economy or other spheres, and it was thought that once the fundamental characteristics were accounted for, then the demographic fluctuations could be easily explained.
