The History of the Siege of Lisbon

FRAY ROGEIRO STATES that it was about this time that signs of famine in the Moorish stronghold were becoming apparent. And no wonder, if we consider that imprisoned behind those walls as if held in a garrote, were over sixty thousand families, a number that at first sight seems alarming and when looked at a second time seems even more alarming, inasmuch as, in those backward times, families consisting of a father, mother and one child were dubious exceptions, and even if we were to estimate such a low number of people in each family we would arrive at a population of two hundred thousand inhabitants, a calculation in its turn called into question by another source of information, according to which the men alone in Lisbon numbered a hundred and fifty-four thousand.

Now then, if we consider that the Koran allows each man to have as many as four wives, all of whom naturally bear him children, and taking into account the slaves who although scarcely treated like humans still have to eat, and therefore must have been the first to feel the want of food, then we end up with numbers that prudence tells us we should treat with extreme caution, some four or five hundred thousand persons, just imagine. In any case, if there were not quite as many, we at least know that the number was high, and from the point of view of those living there, too high by far.