Immigration and Medieval populations

Hackney has had immigration to its fertile wetlands for a very long time

Migration Watch says in a briefing paper: The history of migration to the UK Briefing Paper 6.1 www.migrationwatchuk.org

1. There was relatively little migration into Britain (other than from Ireland) until New

Commonwealth immigration began in the 1950s.

However, a look back at how Britain was populated shows that immigration (or the movement of people from one place to another to live) has been going on since people left Africa, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and into what became the UK for 40,000 years. (See page on prehistoric Britain).

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.asp

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No complete population censuses were taken until the 18th century, thus estimates of population levels are notoriously unreliable. Estimated levels vary as a number of "multiplier" factor often have to be taken into account - estimated population density, ages of marriage, and perhaps most importantly the number of people denoted by a "hearth" in those medieval tax surveys that do provide hard numbers. Other expansions of the few hard figures we have are frequently done by using actuarial data from modern world societies with population structures like that of medieval Europe, for instance figures derived from Indian population surveys earlier in the 20th century.

Population Estimates (in millions) at specified times 500-1450

The information here is taken from Josiah C. Russell, "Population in Europe:, in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed., The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. I: The Middle Ages, (Glasgow : Collins/Fontana, 1972), 25-71

AREA                  500     650     1000    1340   1450  

Greece/Balkans        5       3       5       6      4.5   

Italy                 4       2.5     5       10     7.3   

Spain/Portugal        4       3.5     7       9      7     

Total - South         13      9       17      25     19    

France/Low countries  5       3       6       19     12    

British Isles         0.5     0.5     2       5      3     

Germany/Scandinavia   3.5     2       4       11.5   7.3   

Total - West/Central  9       5.5     12      35.5   22.5  

Slavia.               5        3                         

---Russia                             6       8      6     

---Poland/Lithuania                    2       3      2     

Hungary               0.5     0.5     1.5     2      1.5   

Total -East           5.5     3.5     9.5     13     9.3   

TOTAL EUROPE          27.5    18      38.5    73.5   50    

         

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/short_history_of_immigration.stm

The early story of the British Isles is one of colonisation. Firstly, Celtic and Pict tribes arrived and formed the first communities in the British Isles.

Then came the Romans. In 250AD, Rome sent a contingent of black legionnaires, drawn from the African part of the empire, to stand guard on Hadrian’s Wall.

There is no evidence that these men stayed in Britannia and when the Romans finally quit in the fifth century, the way was clear for the Germanic tribes that would slowly become the English.

Four hundred years after the Jutes, Angles and Saxons colonised modern-day southern England, the Vikings arrived, bringing a distinctive new influence to the cultural pot. The Vikings' sphere of influence was northern Britain and modern-day East Anglia.

The most dramatic of these immigrations was the Norman Conquest in 1066. The Normans, descended from Vikings who had settled in France, brought with them their early-French language which would fundamentally change the direction of English, government and law. To this day, a number of Parliamentary ceremonies can be dated back to the Franco-Norman era.