South Scandinavian fisheries in the sixteenth century: the Dutch connection (original) (raw)

Beyond the Catch. Fisheries of the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic, 900-1850

2009

"Current concerns about the survival of marine life and the fishing industry have contributed to a rising interest in their past development. While much of the scholarship is focused on the recent past, this collection of essays presents new interpretations in the pre-industrial history of the fisheries by highlighting the consequences of the northern fisheries through an interdisciplinary approach, including the environment, economy, politics, and society in the medieval and early modern periods. A wide variety of topics related to the fisheries, such as settlement and spatial organisation, processing methods, trade, profitability and taxation, consumption, communication and cooperation, ranging from the Viking Age until industrialisation are dealt with in a long term perspective, offering new insights in the intriguing relationship between marine life and humanity. Contributors are Inês Amorim, James H. Barrett, Christiaan van Bochove, Petra van Dam, Chloé Deligne, Carsten Jahnke, Alison M. Locker, Thomas H. McGovern, Sophia Perdikaris, Marnix Pieters, Peter Pope, Bo Poulsen, Callum M. Roberts, Louis Sicking, Dries Tys, Adri van Vliet, Annette de Wit, Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz. Key words: medieval; zooarchaeology; modern; social; institutions; marine; economy; early; archaeology; trade; landscape; cod; fisheries; herring; species; history

Fish Trade in Medieval North Atlantic Societies

2018

This series provides a publishing platform for research on the history, cultures, and societies that laced the North Sea from the Migration Period at the twilight of the Roman Empire to the eleventh century. The point of departure for this series is the commitment to regarding the North Atlantic as a centre, rather than a periphery, thus connecting the histories of peoples and communities traditionally treated in isolation: Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians / Vikings, Celtic communities, Baltic communities, the Franks, etc. From this perspective new insights can be made into processes of transformation, economic and cultural exchange, the formation of identities, etc. It also allows for the inclusion of more distant cultures-such as Greenland, North America, and Russia-which are of increasing interest to scholars in this research context.

The medieval stockfish trade: a maritime perspective from northern Norway

Argos - Journal of the Maritime Museum of Ílhavo, 2021

This article provides an overview of archaeological evidence for the development of the strockfish trade in northern Norway focusing on the central importance of islands where stockfish was produced for export. The perspective explicitly prioritizes the critical role played by the maritime communities in Arctic Norway responsible for producing the dried cod that was so highly sought after in the expanding urban centers of Europe. Another key element is an emphasis on the maritime importance of the stockfish trade that was entirely dependent on small coastal and islander communities in the far north of Europe for its existence. The importance of island and maritime archaeology as a source of empirical data on the stockfish trade that enhances and supplements written historical sources has been illustrated by a number of case studies emphasizing the importance of Lofoten as a principal producer of stockfish.

2 - HolmCommercial Sea Fisheries in the Baltic Region c. ad 1000–1600.pdf

The largest commercial fishery in medieval Europe was in the western Baltic. The aim of this paper is to assess traded and landed amounts of the main target species, Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), and to discuss the development of cod (Gadus morhua) and other fisheries the eastern and northern parts of the Baltic. I shall primarily consider the supply side, namely, the catch and procurement of fish, for which we have a growing body of evidence. The demand side of preferences, in both local and international markets, remains under-researched, but in recent years some information has become available – primarily from the analysis of archaeological fish bones – that points to potential breakthroughs in the future. The commercial, cultural and political significance of the Baltic fisheries is currently poorly understood, and this paper will identify some possible future lines of investigation.

The character of commercial fishing in Icelandic waters in the fifteenth century

Three points are argued in this paper. The firrst is that for the English the businesses of fishing and trade in the North Atlantic were inseparable. This mixed approach stands in sharp contrast to that of the Hanseatic merchants, who were solely traders. The second point is that the participants in fishing operations were working according to different strategies, which become comprehensible once we understand the cultural context in which their decisions were made. The final aspect is that the study of the fishing by the English and an understanding of the trading operations by the Hanse has helped to clarify the emerging concept of second-stage commercialisation of the fishing industry.