Medieval Demographics Based on the 1427 Catasto of Florence - Part I

 

 

In 1427, the city of Florence, in northern Italy, undertook a census of every household in the city. Florence was in a war with the powerful Duchy of Milan and needed to understand the potential for taxation in order to finance the war.  The census takers recorded the name, address, occupation and wealth of every inhabitant they could identify, 60,000 residents in total. Brown University was kind enough to digitalize approximately 10,000 records from the census and place them online.

The only other Medieval census I’m aware of are several conducted in Paris in the early 14^th century. The portion of the Parisian census that’s been digitalized only include a few neighborhoods and may not be representative of the city as a whole.  Nevertheless, people have applied data from the Paris census to fantasy world building such as the well known Medieval Demographics Made Incredibly Easy

At the time of the census, Florence was one of the most advanced and richest cities in Europe. The primary Florentine industry was textile manufacturing which is obvious from the professions in the table below. The occupational distribution in Florence was probably different from that of less advanced cities such as Paris or London and it was certainly different from that of a small city or a town.

A sample of 10,000 households out of 60,000 should be statistically significant as long as they were randomly selected from throughout the city. If, however, the sample was only from one part of Florence, the sample could be skewed. The raw data shows that respondents were located in each of the quarters of Florence so the data should be valid.

Of the 10,000 records in the data, about 4,500 citizens did not report a profession.  2,779 of the citizens with no reported profession were either elderly, children under age 14 or women who may have been housewives. 770 were age sixty or older, 1,583 were children younger than fourteen and 446 were women older than fourteen but under age sixty. Those with no profession may have been unemployed or may have declined to answer the profession. The census workers were presumably interested in each household’s wealth, not so much what they worked at, so the census takers may not have pressed for an answer to this question.   

The most numerous profession was that of lawyer or notary with 7.4% practicing law! This is probably atypical for most medieval cities. Florence was a very advanced mercantile city and probably needed a large number of lawyers and notaries to handle business contracts.

The grouping of some professions by the census takers was a bit odd. Weapon makers, bowyers and armor makers were lumped into one category but plate armor makers had their own profession. This was probably due to guild affiliation. I have accepted the groupings as given.

Some occupations appear to be underrepresented in the sample. Others, such as sailors, are almost completely missing. Florence is located inland on a non-navigable river, so the lack of sailors is unsurprising.  Other professions that undoubtedly existed, such as that of prostitute, were unsurprisingly missing altogether from the survey. Clergy were also mostly absent, possibly because church property wasn’t taxable by the municipal authorities so there was no point in including the clergy in a tax census.  Others, such as beggars, are nearly absent, perhaps because beggars were considered wards of the Church and were housed on church property.

The following table is a summary by profession. The percentage figure is based on the full 10,000 records, not just the 6,000 with a profession. The numbers don’t add up to 100% because around 40% of citizens didn’t report a profession.  Additionally, there were a few miscellaneous professions such as grave digger that had few respondents and were excluded.

 

   Florentine Professions in 1427

Profession	Pct.
Lawyer or notary	7.35%
Wool maker	5.80%
Judge	3.00%
Municipal employee	2.70%
Weaver	2.69%
Wool merchant	2.17%
Shoemaker	1.83%
Carpenter	1.52%
Linen or second-hand cloth dealer	1.28%
Barber	1.08%
Tailor	0.94%
Brick layer	0.93%
Spice dealer	0.90%
Soldier	0.89%
Baker	0.89%
Fuller	0.86%
Laborer	0.85%
Silk merchant	0.84%
Butcher	0.73%
Furrier (fur maker)	0.68%
Silk or linen weaver	0.65%
Gold smith or jeweler	0.64%
Guild employee or administrator	0.62%
Physician	0.61%
Broker	0.59%
Artist	0.58%
Servant	0.57%
Thread maker	0.50%
Wine dealer	0.49%
Innkeeper	0.49%
Prepared food seller	0.47%
Cloth dyer or bleacher	0.46%
Peddler	0.45%
Miller	0.43%
Pack saddle maker	0.42%
Doublet maker	0.42%
Iron smith or iron worker	0.41%
Bowl maker	0.41%
Blacksmith	0.41%
Cloth shearer	0.34%
Embroider, sewer	0.33%
Iron dealer	0.30%
Cooper (barrel maker)	0.30%
Weapon or armor maker	0.28%
Coppersmith or brass worker	0.28%
Church servant	0.27%
Grain dealer	0.26%
Grocer	0.25%
Cutler (knife maker)	0.25%
Tanner	0.23%
Money changer	0.22%
Mattress or bed maker	0.22%
Locksmith	0.22%
Carter, teamster	0.22%
Belt maker	0.21%
Slipper maker	0.20%
Saddler	0.20%
Plate armorer	0.19%
Kiln maker or worker	0.19%
Scribe but not notary	0.18%
Cook	0.18%
Mule or horse driver or dealer	0.16%
Laundress	0.15%
Academic or student	0.15%
Paper dealer	0.11%
Town crier, auctioneer	0.10%
Purse maker	0.10%
Leather worker	0.10%
Rope maker	0.08%
Musician	0.08%
Scale maker	0.07%
Oil merchant or chandler	0.06%
Hat maker	0.04%

 

Notes:

1)  Lawyers, notaries and judges are found at a much higher rate than would be typical in most cities.

2) Barbers had a side gig as surgeons.

3) Spice dealers would be much less common in a less wealthy city.

4) Florentine buildings appear to have been constructed mostly of brick.  Surprisingly, there were no stone masons in the census although they may have been lumped into the brick layer category.

5) Gold smith and money changers often operated as bankers, lending money.  There was no profession of banker recorded in the census although several people identified as “great merchants” and could have been bankers. The Medici family was already operating as bankers at the time of the census. Giovanni Bicci Medici, the founder of the Medici’s bank, was listed in the census but no profession was given. According to Staley Edgcombe, there were 120 banks in Florence in 1400.

6) The number of servants is almost certainly underestimated. Even in French cities in earlier centuries, most tradesman’s households had at least one servant.

7) The number of inns can’t be inferred directly from the number of innkeepers.  There probably weren’t 294 inns in a city of 60,000, even one that had lots of visitors.  The numbers are probably skewed upwards because some inns were run by multiple innkeepers.

8) The number of chandlers (candle makers) in the survey is probably much less than the actual number.

9) Italians drank mostly wine rather than ale. In western Europe, beer sellers would take the place of wine dealers.

10) Prepared food sellers operated delicatessen-like shops.

11) Clergy were mostly absent from the census. A reasonable number would probably be one ordained priest for every 200 residents or 0.5%. There would probably be a similar number of non-ordained monks.

12) Sailors were nearly completely absent in the census. In a port city, sailors would be fairly common as would ships carpenters and caulkers.

13) The "soldiers" category may include mercenaries and not just men-at-arms employed by Florence. 

14) Wool makers are presumably wool thread spinners and not sheep.

In broad categories:

Occupational Category	Pct
Cloth manufacture	12.2%
Legal	10.4%
Services	5.0%
Clothing manufacture	4.7%
Merchant	4.5%
Government	4.2%
Food	3.4%
Construction	2.6%
Metal work	2.3%
Leather work	1.3%
Financial	0.9%

Note that the percentages do not sum to 100% due to the numerous citizens who didn’t report a profession and the few difficult to categorize professions that I left out.

Bibliography

Herlihy, David; Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane Tuscans and their families: a study of the Florentine catasto of 1427

Brown University Catasto database: https://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/catasto/newsearch/sqlform.php

 Edcombe, Staley, The Guilds of Florence

Medieval Demographics Made Incredibly Easy:  https://web.archive.org/web/20240910031813/https://gamingballistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Medieval-Demographics-Made-Easy-1.pdf

Tags: Medieval, Middle ages, Florence, Italy, rpg, fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, demographics