ABSTRACT
The Lynn of Margery Kempe was one of England’s leading ports. Its population in 1377 has been estimated as 4,691, about 1,300 less than that of Norwich, which, with York and Bristol, ranked as the largest and most populous English towns after (a long way after) London. The sizes of loans which the community of Lynn made to the Crown on occasion suggest that it had one of the largest concentrations of urban wealth in England; for instance, in 1386 the loan made by Lynn to Richard II equalled that lent by Norwich, and was less than the amounts lent by only five other urban centres. In 1426, a group of influential parishioners estimated the number of communicants as around 3,900 – they are likely to have excluded children below the age of at least ten. 1
