The Danish fisheries c.1450-1800. Medieval and early modern ...

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towns like Copenhagen, Malmø and Helsingør where they would still find a local market for their products. 29 - Consumption Many factors may explain the relative price decline. After the Protestant reformation, ‘catholic practices’ such as the eating of fish at stipulated times were given up. When fasting regulations were abolished, the wealthy turned to a meat diet even on traditional ‘fish days’. North West European consumption habits gave greater priority to meat and poultry; declining fish consumption was evident in Britain and the Scandinavian countries by the seventeenth century. This is a general factor which helps to explain the development of North Atlantic fisheries. Of course, demand remained for the provision of cheap protein for the labouring poor, especially the expanding numbers of seafarers who needed nutritious and well- preserved food for long voyages, but the demand for well-preserved, high-quality fish contracted. 30 Unfortunately, practically no work has been done on Danish food consumption patterns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the change in diet probably did not follow immediately upon the Reformation but rather occurred during the first half of the seventeenth century. 31 Fish consumption in rural areas probably changed more slowly than in the towns and among the nobility. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the yearly ration of herring for a Zealand agricultural worker was reckoned as one quarter of a barrel; 32 this ration need not have changed much since the Middle Ages. 29 Stoklund 1959, 119. 30 Heckscher; Cutting; Grøn. 31 Lilli Friis, ‘Æde og drikke’, 419-23. There is a rich source material in estate food lists. 32 Heckscher 1949, xxv (note referring to p. 285).
- Competition The fact that Danish fisheries crumbled while the Dutch succeeded reminds us that the Danes concentrated on inshore, lightly salted products (and in the case of the Sound for the top end of the market), while the Dutch went deep-sea for large quantities of heavily-salted fish. The superiority of the Dutch made them corner the remaining up-market for high-quality herring. The result of Dutch dominance was the abandonment of the Danish-Norwegian coasts by people in their thousands. After a brief pause during the Spanish War, when Bohuslen had its hey-days, the Dutch returned around 1590 to supply the Baltic market, and in the face of their plentiful, high-quality supplies, the Danish-Norwegian fishing industry succumbed. Dutch fisheries peaked in the first half of the seventeenth century when 5-600 busses, each of 50 to 60 tons burthen, worked with a total labour force of 7,000 fishermen, brought home a total of 20,000 lasts or 240,000 barrels per year. 33 One of the reasons for the success of the Dutch was their much higher productivity. The average catch per fisherman was 34 barrels, compared with a catch per fisherman in the Sound fishery of around 15 barrels. Around 1590 the Dutch had regained control over the fishing grounds in the North Sea, and the clearances of Dutch herring through the Sound rose to unprecedented heights of almost 10,000 lasts by the end of the decade. This supply may have forced prices down and rendered the South Scandinavian fisheries unable to compete on the market. Vastly increased Dutch cod fisheries may also have affected the South Scandinavian fisheries adversely. - Environment Short-term environmental changes undoubtedly played a decisive role for the depression of the Limfjord fishery around 1630 and irreversibly around 1830. The barrier between the fiord 33 See Jaap Bruijn in Studia Atlantica 1. Also Jan de Vries & Ad van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815. De eerste ronde van moderne economische groei (Amsterdam, 1995) 301-2.
Page 1 and 2: The Danish fisheries c1450-1800 Med
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