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

heavier competition on the fish market, especially from English and
Dutch production of klipfish. 277
But even if stockfish prices fell and fishing villages were abandoned,
the population in the combined farming-fishing areas increased. The
volume of the total stockfish production also increased at least up to the
1650s. Figures of production are still uncertain in this period, but a
redoubling of the volume has been assumed from the 1570s to c1600 and
another redoubling from 1600 to 1650. Tveite has assumed that the
increase was larger in Mid- and West-Norway than in the north in this
period. 278 To be able to explain the ambiguity of the development,
Norwegian historians have assumed that the price fall made it necessary
for the fishermen to increase their efforts in the seasonal fisheries, to
keep their income at a normal level. The production increase was
therefore mainly of an extensive character. The population growth in the
farming-fishing districts was in itself a cause, and it was strengthened by
the increased energy and longer periods of activity in the seasonal
fisheries.
But after 1670 there was a marked drop in output, and the volume fell
back to about the same size as c1600. 279 The central fishery in Lofoten
seems to have gone through the largest setback—there were also
negative tendencies in the cod fisheries further south. International
competition from the klipfish was one important cause—another seems
to have been initiated by Mother Nature herself—the occurrence of cod
in close waters declined, probably due to a reduction in the sea
temperature during the Little Ice Age. The negative trend in the cod
fisheries continued till about 1750.
Herring
Herring had been the most important fish on the European market since
the Middle Ages. On the Norwegian coasts herring had been caught in
some quantity since at least the Viking Age, but only to be used in the
household. It was usually caught by seines. Because of lack of salt, it was
usually conserved by drying or smoking. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries there was an increase in herring fishing for the
277 Nedkvitne 1984; see also Holm’s paper in this volume.
278 Dyrvik, Fossen, Grønlie, Hovland, Nordvik, Tveite 1979: 39.
279 Dyrvik etc. 1979: 39-40.
155