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

good years around 1617-22. 334 Evidence from the neighbouring North
European countries concerning both cod and herring thus shows a
significant drop in the price of fish relative to agricultural products from
the late medieval to the early modern ages. In the Netherlands, the
relative price fall was counterbalanced by expanding deep-sea catches
from larger and more productive ships. In Denmark, fishermen were
apparently unable to afford larger ships and were pushed out of the
fishing sector by poor prices.
On the capital side, we know that the noblemen withdrew their
maritime investments to concentrate on agriculture and stockraising. 335
They also began a political battle to restrict the freedom of their peasants
to fish and trade; while the King occasionally supported the freedom of
the peasants to leave their soil, the towns supported the noblemen. In
South Zealand, the towns suffered because of the decline in the fish
trade; in Stege, the citizens had their taxes redeemed in 1582, while their
dues to the Crown were almost halved “because the fishery is so poor”. 336
The town wanted to reduce peasant sailing in order to keep the transport
of goods for themselves. The combined efforts of nobles and towns
succeeded by a series of royal commands. 337 The prohibitions meant,
however, that the peasants lost interest in keeping a boat altogether; they
not only stopped trading but also fishing. Before 1600 they had been
effectively bound to the land, and a strictly agricultural system had
developed. The late-sixteenth century development of domain manors
needed lots of manpower, and could not tolerate a haphazard loss of the
workforce for two or three months in the harvesting period. If, or when,
the herring returned in great numbers, there was only a small group of
professional fishermen to catch it. The custom of recruiting crews from
the surrounding agricultural areas had stopped, and economic interest
had turned effectively away from the sea.
Finally, we should consider the change in consumption habits which
took place after the Reformation when ‘catholic practices’ such as the
334 W. Bauernfeind, Materielle Grundstrukturen im Spätmittelalter und der Frühen
Neuzeit: Preisentwicklung und Agrarkonjunktur am Nürnberger Getreidemarkt von
1339 bis 1670 (Neustadt/Aisch, BRD: Schmidt Gmbh, 1993).
335 Ladewig Petersen, Danmarks historie 2:2, 409.
336 Stoklund, ‘Bonde og fisker’, 107.
337 F. Martensen-Larsen, Hav, fjord og handel. En studie i handelsveje i Nordjylland i
tiden indtil 1850 (Herning, 1986) 151 note 10.
191