A MODEL OF EARLY-MODERN URBAN DEMOGRAPHY

Early modern towns are often said to have experienced natural population decrease. Most historians explain this phenomenon by high levels of urban mortality, or by shifts in rural-urban migration. Data presented for York during the period 1561-1700 show that existing models of urban demography provide only a partial explanation of that city's demography. An alternative model is therefore presented; one where overall levels of urban fertility are subject to change and where the urban economy is an important influence on migration, on the ability to marry, on fertility, and hence on levels of natural change.