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

herring trade was to be challenged. Their fisheries in the North Sea
faltered during the 1570s, and Dutch herring exports into the Baltic fell
to an average of 5,700 barrels per year. At this juncture Norwegian
exports took over the Baltic market. The Norwegian fishery was
prosecuted off the coast of Båhuslen, the area just north of present-day
Gothenburg, which was only later to become Swedish territory. The
herring shoals seem to have started to come close inshore in 1556, but
only in 1560 was the first Lübeck tradesman recorded in the Sound Toll
Registers as returning from the area, probably having bought herring.
For the next two decades, Båhuslen was the main provider of herring
for the Baltic market. In the 1560s Båhuslen clearances were less than a
third of the Dutch (8,400 barrels per year), but in the 1570s Båhuslen
exported 34,800 barrels, six times the Dutch figure, which was by then
heavily reduced by war and piracy in the North Sea. The Dutch traders
tried to compensate for the loss of the North Sea fisheries by calling at
Båhuslen to fill their empty holds. In the 1580s, Båhuslen exported
39,180 barrels, while the Dutch were slowly improving their North Sea
fisheries, which supplied 13,080 barrels cleared from Dutch ports. 324
Exports peaked in 1585 at 75,600 barrels.
The actual fishery took place from a number of more or less
permanent settlements in the Båhuslen archipelago, which attracted
thousands of people from inland; the Danish merchants also brought
their own fishermen. A taxlist of 1589 shows that merchants from towns
like Fredrikstad, Aalborg, Flensborg, Sønderborg and Copenhagen
owned booths in almost every major fishing settlement. Other booths
were owned by local merchants from Marstrand, and also merchants
from Oslo and Tønsberg to the north, Lödöse and Varberg to the east
and Helsingør, Kalundborg, Odense, Kerteminde and Skælskør to the
south. 325 Even from Ribe, fishermen went all the way round the Scaw to
participate in the Norwegian fisheries. 326 The Crown provided naval
vessels to protect fishermen and merchants travelling from Denmark to
Norway during the Nordic Seven Years War (1563-70), and so
demonstrated the importance attached to the new fisheries. 327 While
324 Calculated from Nina Ellinger Bang, Tabeller over Skibsfart og Varetransport
gennem Øresund 1497-1660, II:A (Copenhagen, 1922).
325 Pettersson, Den svenska skagerrakkustens fiskebebyggelse, 115-16.
326 Kinch, Ribe Bys Historie II, 870-1.
327 Kancelliets Brevbøger 1564 6/9, 13/10, 18/11.
185