nce or war diminish population directly,
though the effect of such factors is usually {453} temporary. How much
voluntary sterility operates is problematical. Aegidius Albertinus,
writing in 1602, attributed the growth in population of Protestant
countries since the Reformation to the abolition of sacerdotal
celibacy, and this has also been mentioned as a cause by a recent
writer. Probably the last named forces have a very slight influence;
the primary one being, as Malthus stated, the increase of means of
subsistence.

As censuses were almost unknown to sixteenth-century Europe outside of
a few Italian cities, the student is forced to rely for his data on
various other calculations, in some cases tolerably reliable, in others
deplorably deficient. The best of these are the enumerations of
hearths made for purposes of taxation in several countries. Other
counts were sometimes made for fiscal or military, and occasionally for
religious, purposes. Estimates by contemporary observers supplement
our knowledge, which may be taken as at least approximately correct.

[Sidenote: England and Wales]

The religious census of 1603 gave the number of communicants in England
and Wales as 2,275,000, to which must be added 8475 recusants. Adding
50 per cent. for non-communicants, we arrive at the figure of
3,425,000, which is doubtless too low. Another calculation based on a
record of births and deaths yields the figure 4,812,000 for the year
1600. The average, 4,100,000, is probably nearly correct, of which
about a tenth in Wales. England had grown considerably during the
century, this increase being especially remarkable in the large towns.
Whereas, in 1534, 150,000 quarters of wheat were consumed in London
annually, the figure for 1605 is 500,000. The population in the same
time had probably increased from 60,000 to 225,000. No figures worth
anything can be given for Ireland, and for Scotland it is only safe to
say {454} that in 1500 the population was about 500,000 and in 1600
about 700,000.

[Sidenote: The Netherlands]

Enumerations of hearths and of communicants give good bases for
reckoning the population of the Netherlands. Holland, the largest of
the Northern provinces, had about 200,000 people in 1514; Brabant the
greatest of the Southern, in 1526 had 500,000. The population of the
largest town, Antwerp, in 1526 was 88,000, in 1550 about 110,000. At
the same time it is remarkable that in 1521 Ghent impres