ABSTRACT
The economic development of England between the mid fourteenth and the early sixteenth century was determined by changes in the country's population more than by any other single factor. Three problems, in particular, the extent of the fall in England's population caused by the Black Death and by subsequent epidemics, the chronology of decline and recovery, and possible redistribution of population throughout the country. The greatest problem for the historian of late medieval population in England is that he has no reliable figure for the number of inhabitants at the time when the plague struck the country first. Indirect evidence may also help the historian to examine population variations, because it is reasonable to infer that these caused economic changes, some of which can be measured over wider and more representative areas. In conclusion, the population of England remained fairly stable for much of the fifteenth century, at a far lower level than in the first half of the fourteenth.
