In March 1428, during the minority of Henry VI, the Commons in parliament granted a new and unusual tax for the defence of the realm. Each rural parish whose church was assessed for clerical taxes at less than ten marks was to contribute 6s. 8d., while those above that threshold were to pay at the rate of 13s. 4d. for every ten marks of value. Importantly, those parishes which contained fewer than ten households were exempt from payment, and it is the listing of exempt parishes with small populations which has particularly caught the attention of historians of medieval settlement. A study of Oxfordshire's deserted medieval villages, for example, demonstrated how that county's list of twenty-five parishes certified as qualifying for exemption may be used to suggest fifteenth-century depopulation. Oxfordshire provided several examples of villages abandoned in the period 1370–1520, when an estimated 2,000 were deserted in England as a whole.

The fifteenth century was a period of widespread population decline, or at least stagnation, in many parts of England. Following the dramatic fourteenth-century losses caused by the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of plague, many rural settlements shrank and an increasing number were wholly deserted as a result of migration, enclosure and other factors. The causes, extent and timing of that shrinkage and desertion have been the subject of close scrutiny over several decades of ongoing research. While acknowledging regional and local variation several studies have emphasised, first, that smaller settlements were more vulnerable to depopulation than larger ones, and secondly, that many deserted or severely shrunken villages and hamlets were not abandoned until the sixteenth century or later. Despite the losses of the years 1370–1520, therefore, the fifteenth century may be characterised as a period when the late medieval settlement pattern was weakened but not overwhelmed by the economic and social upheaval unleashed by the plague. By the early 1500s many settlements, even including some which eventually failed to survive, had recovered from an initial loss of population and were thriving once more. Detailed local studies, such as those provided by the Victoria County History, can sometimes show these varied patterns of contraction and recovery over a relatively small area.