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

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We do not as yet have a complete picture of the development of the West Jutland fisheries in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for lack of investigation of the estate records after 1660. Trade figures do, however, provide a clear indication of developments (see Figure 4). The export of Ribe declined from one million flatfish in 1600 to 300,000 pieces in 1700, and was halved in the next 30 years. The trade of the other main outlets of Hjerting and Ringkøbing was just as bad, and although the figures are less than complete due to the destruction of of many customs records, there is no doubt that the West Jutland fish exports had almost completely ceased by the end of the eighteenth century. The Limfjord The ecosystem of the Limfjord is known to have been exposed to recurrent dramatic changes through the last millennium with several changes from highly saline to brackish water. Archeofaunal investigations have documented that the fiord fishery of the Iron and Viking ages was dominated by plaice and eel at a time when the fiord must have been highly saline as the fiord was open both to the north and west for North Sea water of 3.5% salinity. 3 Rising land level closed the entries to the fiord sometime in the eleventh century, preempting the inflow of salt water from the North Sea. By 1200 the fiord was reported to have a rich herring fishery, and the herring seems to have adapted to alternating brackish and saline water conditions, as the fiord was its main feeding area through the spring before it migrated into the 3% saline conditions of the Kattegat for spawning. In 1624 the fiord was opened to the west by a storm. The herring stock seems to have suffered from the influx of North Sea water as the fisheries were reported to be much depressed by the early 1630s. In the next few years the breach of the sand dunes closed and the stock recovered. A well-documented repetition of the scenario occurred in 1825 when a breach of the coastline caused the herring to be first 3 Inge Bødker Enghoff,
caught in large numbers and then to become extinct within a decade. The fiord was now kept artificially open, and the fiord was again occupied by plaice and eel. The herring fishery was mainly conducted by large and very expensive pound nets owned by urban merchants of Aalborg. The fishery seems to have been fully developed by the early sixteenth century when in 1518 the royal privileged purchase (kongekøb) amounted to 528 barrels of herring. 4 In the 1600s the annual kongekøb oscillated between 400 and 900 barrels in periods of good harvests. As 1518 was not a particularly good year for Aalborg’s trade, the harvesting potential of the fiord seems already to have been exploited to the full by the early sixteenth century. This impression is reinforced by the intense legislative effort on the part of the King to control fishing effort by strict regulations of mesh size and the allotment of fishing grounds to a limited number of pound nets. The sources of the kongekøb privilege for the seventeenth century and the export trade figures of Aalborg’s exports to the Baltic for the eighteenth century give an impression of the periodicity of the fishery (Figures 5 and 6). The fishing was depressed in the early 1600s and peaked 1610-20. A lacuna of the 1620s prevents us from following the impact of the 1624 flood, but the figures from 1631 reveal a fishery which is being built up to a new peak in the 1640s, with a new decline by 1654. Then followed a long depression which is 4 Jan Kock, Næringsliv og samfærdsel. Aalborgs historie I, (Aalborg, 1992) 355.
Page 1 and 2: The Danish fisheries c1450-1800 Med
Page 3 and 4: around the Reef of the Horn for the
Page 5: known that by the mid-sixteenth cen
Page 9 and 10: The Limfjord herring was reported t
Page 11 and 12: around 50,000 barrels, peaking at 6
Page 13 and 14: on the Swedish side were probably l
Page 15 and 16: in order to take up new fisheries,
Page 17: fishery. In early March 1564 they w
Page 20 and 21: not taxed. The accounts from 1604 t
Page 22 and 23: fisheries exported little to Hambur
Page 24 and 25: notable exception to the price decl
Page 26 and 27: towns like Copenhagen, Malmø and H
Page 28 and 29: and the North Sea in the west was b
Page 30: conceivably have altered the marine

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

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