The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

common contention of historians that the Late Middle Ages were very
favourable for the fisheries and the fish trade.
As for the volume of trade in this period, it has traditionally been
estimated as being very large. But Lunden, who was the first historian to
apply quantitative analysis, came to another conclusion in his 1967
article. He found that the stockfish export from Bergen to the staple in
Lübeck in the period 1368-1400 could not have been higher than 200
tons annually. Consequently he concluded that the importance of
stockfish exports from Norway had been greatly exaggerated by earlier
historians. Considering that some historians, especially German, had
argued that the stockfish trade had been necessary for the settlement in
North Norway, 270 his conclusion is indisputably correct. On the other
hand, he has been criticized by Nedkvitne both for underestimating the
volume of trade, and especially for having disregarded the export of
stockfish to Western Europe which did not go through the staple in
Lübeck. 271
Foreign Fisheries
The Norwegian kings in the High Middle Ages tried to centralize the
stockfish inland market on Vágar and to have the stockfish brought
further to Bergen and Trondheim by national merchants. A law issued by
the king as late as in 1384 was designed to maintain this old system. In
the Late Middle Ages when the Hanseatics took over the export trade and
it was centralized on Bergen, neither the Hanseatic nor other foreign
merchants were allowed to sail to the fishery districts and trade directly
with the fishermen in the north. It is difficult to say to what extent the
prohibition was respected, but there is not very much evidence showing
that Hanseatic ships took part in active fishing in the north. The text of
the law mentions illegal trade in ‘fiords and fishing villages’. Another
law text from 1425 mentions ‘the sailing of German and other foreign
men to Hålogaland, Finnmark, Iceland and the other ...skattland.’ 272 But
as a rule, and as long as Norwegian tradesmen, and after 1350 the
fishermen themselves, could bring the stockfish to Bergen, the
Hanseatics would not have any strong motive to go to the north to get
hold of the stockfish.
270 Lunden 1967: 98-99.
271 Nedkvitne 1976.
272 Johnsen 1923: 33.
151