Note 14 — AND ADVANTAGES WHICH THEY CAN YIELD TO HIS MAJESTY CARLOS III

At the end of the atlas volume in Raynal’s Établissemens et commerce des Européens is a tabular “Enumeration of the population of Spain, prepared in 1768 by order of his Lordship Conde de Aranda, president of the Council of Castilla.” The population is given separately for each of the eight archbishoprics (which contain 48 bishoprics, 2 of them “exempt”). The lay population was thus classed: married persons, 1,724,567 men and 1,714,505 women; unmarried (presumably including children), 2,809,069 boys and 2,911,858 girls; total, 9,159,999. Add the number of the clergy (both regular and secular), which was 147,805, and the entire population numbered 9,307,804. Two curious discrepancies may be noted: the number of married men is greater than that of the married women by 10,062, and the girls exceed the boys by 102,789 (this latter an excess of about 3⅔ per cent). The only region in which the number of married men is practically the same as that of married women is the archdiocese of Valencia, and the only one where the same thing is true of the boys and girls is the archdiocese of Zaragoza. The greatest discrepancy in the numbers of both these classes is found in the archdiocese of Burgos, where there were 197,064 married men, and only 185,997 married women; and it had 330,428 girls and only 310,545 boys. Highly significant is the enumeration of the privileged classes, of whom in the total population there were 846,657, thus classified: those enjoying royal privileges, 89,393; in the department of finances, 27,577; in that of the Crusade, 4,248; in that of the Inquisition, 2,645; in the nobility, 722,794. It is to be observed that three-fourths of all the privileged class are found in the archdiocese of Burgos and the two exempt bishoprics—in the former, 324,661; in the latter, 306,378. Not less interesting are the statistics of the ecclesiastical estate. In the 16,427 cities and villages were 18,106 parishes, which were served by 15,641 curas. There were 2,004 monasteries, containing 55,453 religious; and 1,026 convents with 26,465 nuns. All these religious orders employed also 8,552 persons as procurators and treasurers, and with the orders were affiliated 26,294 laymen. In the service of the churches were 25,248 laymen; and besides the curas there were 50,246 chaplains and beneficed priests. The total of all these items is 147,805, the number above given. ↑