ABSTRACT
The difficulty of establishing population figures for either states or cities in the late medieval and early modern periods is reflected in the differing estimates to be found in the secondary literature. Thus, for example, France in 1500 has been variously estimated to have had a population of between sixteen and nineteen million, while the city of Genoa, also in 1500, has been given a population. These problems derive from the limitations of the primary sources. The Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of plague resulted in the loss of up to a third or a half of the population in certain areas, with only a few isolated pockets being spared altogether. Those losses were not made up in the Renaissance period: some land inside medieval city walls remained uninhabited for centuries. Throughout the late medieval period the most densely populated regions of Europe were the Low Countries and northern Italy, both major centres of manufacturing and consumption.
