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

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and the North Sea in the west was breached by a flood in 1624 and 1825. We know that the fish catches went up in the years immediately after the second breach, and that may also have happened in the 1620s. However, by 1630 and 1832 the fisheries were reported to be much depressed. The herring, which was accustomed to brackish water, was probably severely reduced with the intrusion of salt water. In the 1630s, the dune barrier was built up by the natural sand drift along the North Sea coast, and the herring stock regained strength. 34 The process would perhaps have repeated itself in the nineteenth century had it not been for dredging and coastal works to keep the fiord open. The decadal cycle of the fishery which may be detected from the 1670-1750 series may also wholly be explained as a biological pattern, while the depression of the Limfjord fishery in the late eighteenth century may partly be explained as an economic result of overwhelming Bohuslen exports in the 1760s, but we should note the long-term decline which had begun already by the 1730s. The periodicity of the Bohuslen herring implies that environmental forcing was the major underlying factor, while it has been argued above that the sudden cessation of the fishery in 1590 was have been linked to market factors. The alternating cycles of North European pelagic stocks seem to be correllated to the North Atlantic Oscillation, and the historical data for the Bohuslen herring stock is one of the best examples of this correllation. The most probable explanation, which parallels the experience from the nineteenth-century herring fishery on the same resource, 35 is that the herring shoals preferred spawning grounds outside the reach of the inshore fishermen. If, because of a change in salt concentration, spawning suddenly took place in the middle of the Skagerrak rather than in the sheltered archipelago of Bohuslen, the shorebound Danish and Norwegian fishermen may have found it impossible to catch the herring. In order to go deep-sea fishing they would have needed 34 Danske Magazin 3:4, 329-332. 35 See Holm, Kystfolk, chapter 7.
herring drifters of the Dutch buisen type. We do not know if and to what extent Danish fishermen had vessels of this kind, but the indication is that they did not, perhaps for lack of capital and technological, including shipbuilding, skills. Thus, Dutch fishermen were able to pursue a herring fishery in the Skagerrak which the Danish and Norwegian fishermen were not. It is not clear when and by how much the herring catches were reduced in the Sound, but it seems likely that the fishery was declining by the middle of the sixteenth century. The decline does not seem to have occurred overnight, but rather to have been an extended process. An irreversible decline after 1600 is well-documented but we need a careful evaluation of all estate records and other circumstantial evidence to be able to follow the development in more detail. The herring in the Sound never disappeared completely as is sometimes stated. Whereas herring is a notoriously volatile resource, cod and haddock are relatively stable. Nevertheless, by the turn of the century, the West Jutland fisheries were also in serious decline and remained at a low level after 1620. The decline was not abrupt but in the long term the decline seems to have begun in the second half of the sixteenth century; tax revenues were halved between 1562/3 and c1600, and cut to one third again by 1630. For the time being, a number of hypotheses may be put forward to explain the long-term decline but we need detailed research on the microlevel which the records allow before we can hope to put the explanations to a test. The continuing depression of the Danish fisheries indicates that long-term factors at the macro-level were at play in addition to sudden and abrupt changes of environment at the micro-level. The North Atlantic Oscillation is one such macro-explanation, and others are available. The cool and stormy weather prevailing in the period 1500-1850 36 may 36 The period is known as the ‘Little Ice Age’ (see Encyclopedia Britannica (1999 CD-
Page 1 and 2: The Danish fisheries c1450-1800 Med
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The Danish fisheries c.1450-1800. Medieval and early modern ...

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