medieval-atlas/economic-development/316

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Burgh tax assessments: Aberdeen and Edinburgh Tax assessment %7.0+ 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.75 0.5 0.25 Average Tax rolls are, at best, only a crude indicator of the overall size of urban populations. Scottish burghs were lightly taxed by comparison with their English counterparts: Aberdeen, the second or third largest town in Scotland, had only 445 taxpayers in 1448, which would have put it below such small English towns as Wells, Bridgnorth or Barking with taxpaying populations of about 900, yet coming fortieth or below in the league table of towns paying the lay subsidy Crooked Aberdeen: quarters Tax rolls may also be used, as here, to compare the economic structure both of different towns and of different parts of a town. The pyramid of wealth for Aberdeen is quite differently shaped from that for Edinburgh, reflecting Aberdeen's proportionately smaller number of craftsmen and All Aberdeen Futty of 1377. So comparisons with English towns on this basis are unsound, as are attempts to use English multipliers to produce an overall population figure for Scottish towns. But comparisons of numbers of taxpayers can be used to give a rough indication of the growth of a burgh or to compare the different sizes of towns -Aberdeen had 445 taxpayers in 1448,553 in 1608 and 569 in 1637; Edinburgh had 1,245 in 1583, 1,152 in 1605 and 1,548 in 1637. 1448 Castle Hill 1637 Numbers taxed in each quarter Edinburgh's greater extremes ofwealth and poverty. Aberdeen, like most Scottish towns, did not have agenuine poor quarter but there was a greater concentration ofcraftsmen in the Green; the top 10% oftaxpayers owned 38% of wealth. Green Crooked Even % of taxpayers % of taxpayers 0.4 0.8 %of 0.9 0.0 % of taxpayers % of taxpayers taxpayen 0.4 0.8 1.0 1.1 0.7 0.4 1.6 1.0 0.0 0.7 0.7 0.8 1.0 0.6 1.4 0.4 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.0 0.5 0.0 1.0 1.1 0.7 2.7 0.0 3.5 2.0 Aberdeen: quarters Social structure of burgh tax assessments, Aberdeen 1608 ML 316

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