How Well Populated Was Pre-Plague Eriador?

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Q: How Well Populated Was Pre-Plague Eriador?

ANSWER: A reader sent in the following list of questions earlier this year:

I have a question that I believe can only be answered with some degree of inference and speculation (i.e. I don’t believe there is a clear answer in Tolkien’s works): how populated was Eriador before the Great Plague (TA 1635) and the destruction of Angmar (TA 1975)? Can we (reasonably) suppose the existence of other settlements like those of Bree-land? I am not talking about fortified settlements/power centers, such as Annúminas and Fornost, but small or medium-sized towns, with their taverns, inns, shops and artisans.

I suppose Annúminas, Fornost and Tharbad demanded the employment of a large contingent of farmers and craftsmen, but was this population scattered through the territory? Wouldn’t be easier to protect the tax base if they were concentrated in a few sites? In the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, for instance, craftsmen were concentrated around royal castles, princely seats and the seats of forested estates.

Well, you’re right that we can only speculate. This is the kind of question where people like to see numbers. I don’t have any numbers that I would trust, although I’ve read many interesting guesses through the years.

The Great Plague began (or reached the westlands) in Third Age year 1636. But the population of Eriador had been in decline for more than 1600 years by that point. I think Tolkien would have imagined ebbs and flows, or rises and declines, in Eriador/Arnor’s overall population. There would have been periods of recovery in-between the various wars.

For example, he mentions there was an attempt to recolonize or reclaim Cardolan in the 1800s (a post-Plague period). Unfortunately, the Barrow-wights made that impossible. And Tolkien doesn’t say whether Men, Hobbits, or both attempted to recolonize Cardolan.

Arnor in the Second Age

Although this is open to interpretation, J.R.R. Tolkien seems to give the impression that more Númenóreans settled in or near Eriador in the Second Age than settled in the lands that eventually became Gondor. The lands of Calenardhon and the lower Vales of Anduin were mainly Elvish until the War of the Elves and Sauron. Silvan Elves had lived in those regions since the First Age, and the haven of Edhellond remained a lone bastion of Elvish culture south of the Ered Nimrais until after the final defeat of Arnor (Arthedain).

From about Second Age year 1697 onward, the Eldar and Silvan Elves withdrew mostly to the lands parallel with the Misty Mountains. The Men who remained in the southern lands were descendants or close relatives of the Gwathurim (who were relatives of the Haladin, the Second House of the Edain). Most of those tribes were loyal to or sympathetic to Sauron. But some of them were friendly to the Númenóreans, and even intermarried with them in some places.

These Gwathiric peoples would have lived at least as far north as Bree and maybe even as far north as Fornost Erain. And they lived as far south as the Anfalas – possibly even on the southern side of the Anduin. It would be prudent to assume that Tolkien imagined clans or tribes of these peoples who were never named, who had vanished by the time of the War of the Ring at the end of the Third Age.

“Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” says:

Elendil was cast up by the waves in the land of Lindon, and he was befriended by Gil-galad. Thence he passed up the River Lhûn, and beyond Ered Luin he established his realm, and his people dwelt in many places in Eriador about the courses of the Lhûn and the Baranduin; but his chief city was at Annúminas beside the water of Lake Nenuial. At Fornost upon the North Downs also the Númenóreans dwelt, and in Cardolan, and in the hills of Rhudaur; and towers they raised upon Emyn Beraid and upon Amon Sûl; and there remain many barrows and ruined works in those places, but the towers of Emyn Beraid still look towards the sea.

Elendil only had a few ships with him. Even if you imagine each was packed with survivors, at best he could only have brought a couple thousand Númenóreans with him. But “Akallabêth” tells us that many Faithful Númenóreans had settled in northern Middle-earth for up to a thousand years. And many of them intermarried with Men of Middle-earth, some of whom were descended from Edainic peoples (of all three kindreds) who had remained behind.

The Marachian and Bëorian peoples lived as far west as the Baranduin and as far east as the Carnen river (which ran from the Iron Hills south to join the Celduin before it entered the Sea of Rhûn. Many of these ancient Edainic peoples remained apart from the Númenóreans in the Vales of Anduin, Greenwood the Great, and in the eastern lands beyond. But apparently some were absorbed into the mingled peoples of Eriador who were allied with the Eldar.

If you must put a number to these populations, then I would estimate something in the hundreds of thousands to perhaps very low millions after the War of the Elves and Sauron. The “Men of Eriador” are mentioned only briefly in a couple of texts, and Tolkien doesn’t say much about them.

Eriador in the Early Third Age

From “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”:

Valandil took up his abode in Annúminas, but his folk were
diminished, and of the Númenóreans and of the Men of Eriador there remained now too few to people the land or to maintain all the places that Elendil had built; in Dagorlad, and in Mordor, and upon the Gladden Fields many had fallen.

Appendix A in The Lord of the Rings says that Annúminas was abandoned sometime after Valandil’s death.

After the division of Arnor into 3 realms in Third Age year 863 the fortunes of the Dunedain waned due to their own wars and the hostility of Angmar (founded in the year 1300). By this time many Hobbits had settled in Eriador. Their arrival would have increased the overall population in some areas if only because they were industrious and needed the protection of Men.

But Rhudaur’s people declined by 1356 and were eventually absorbed into Angmar. The Hobbits who had settled in the Angle fled west or south (to Dunland). Cardolan lost much of its population in the War of 1409 and the last of its people either died or fled in the Great Plague.

Tharbad, which Gondor and Arnor had jointly maintained since the Second Age, was abandoned by Gondor after the Great Plague. The city survived but declined until it was destroyed by floods and abandoned in 2912.

When Argeleb II granted the lands west of the Baranduin to the Hobbits, they must have been empty for a long time. They had formerly been the royal demesne attached to Annúminas. That means late in the Second Age and early in the Third Age they had been populated by Men.

All of the former Hobbit settlements east of Bree were either abandoned or destroyed by the War of 1409. But many Hobbits also died during the Great Plague, and after 1636 they only lived in the Breeland and the Shire. The Shire’s population did increase, and many Hobbits crossed the Baranduin to establish the Buckland in Third Age year 2340

According to The Peoples of Middle-earth, King Araval recolonized Cardolan in the mid-1800s. Hence, he must have ruled over a growing population. But this anecdote was omitted from the final published Appendix (possibly only to save space, as Tolkien had to remove a lot of material for that reason). Even so, Cardolan would have been laid waste in the final war of 1974.

Eriador in the Late Third Age

Tolkien’s commentaries narrow after the fall of Arnor and they focus on the Shire and Buckland. We know that some “wild men” survived in Eryn Vorn, but their numbers were not significant. The Dunedain withdrew to the Angle (probably after 2912) and by the time Frodo traveled east to Bree he had no idea of who they were. The Hobbits of Southfarthing knew of the “tall watchers” by the fords, but they didn’t know who they were or where they came from.

I don’t think Tolkien envisioned much population growth after the destruction of Arnor. It would have been incidental at best, because he only mentions one expansion of settlements: the founding of the Buckland. After that, everything seems to settle down. He doesn’t say whether the Breeland had a larger population between 1974 and 3018.

The Forsaken Inn had to have existed at some point between the fall of Arnor and the War of the Ring. I don’t believe Tolkien would have imagined its ruins surviving for more than a thousand years. So I think there must have been a larger population in Eriador prior to the Long Winter (2758-59) and maybe even prior to the floods that destroyed Tharbad. But that’s really open to interpretation.

See Also

Why Did So Few People Know Where to Find Imladris?

What Is the History of Tharbad?

How Deserted Was Eriador In the Late Third Age?

Good Night, Good Rhudaur (Classic Essay)

Where Did the Second Age Númenóreans Live In Eriador?

A History of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, Part 1 (Classic Essay)

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