Ancient Rome had an estimated population of 1 million people, but the city of Rome had only about a population around 25K at the start of the 1400s, but many would still have considered it a relatively bustling city of its time, despite the fact that it was a shadow of its former glory. But there were a fair number of larger urban centers in Europe around the time of the 1400s, including in the rest of Italy, which had populations in the 200K+ range (e.g., Milan, Florence, Naples, etc.). Plus, a lot of these European cities were hammered by the Plague.
Moreover, one also has to consider that the year is 998 YK, and the continent of Khorvaire is still recovering from a one-hundred year war, which also featured its share of famine, drought, disease, and other issues. There were areas in Germany, particularly in the nothern regions, that took decades or centuries for their populations to recover from the Thirty Years War.