Fishing in Medieval Times - Cliffe History

The consumption of fish was an important part of life in the early medieval period and therefore the catching, preparation, storage 1 and cooking 2 played an  equally significant role in everyday life. Although in 730   AD, according to Bede, Bishop Winfrid of Colchester   apparently:

The use of hook and line to catch great quantity of fish is an unproductive method to use. However, this is a method that was used in pre-conquest times for many of the same reasons as it is used today: it is less demanding upon materials. Today the use of rod, reel, line and hook is mainly employed by the sporting fraternity whilst the early medieval period the use of hook and line was part of ones' livelihood. Although there is some evidence to suggest that reels were employed in China c. 3000BC they were not in common use in this country until late 13th-early 14th century.

To angle is to fish with rod and hook and, in fact, the use of a pole or rod was not introduced into this county until the 13th century. The first recorded account of an angler was of an abbess fishing for carp and by 1496 the art of angling had produced its first book written in English; Treatise of Fysshynge with an Angle by Dame Juliana Berners. There is, however,

a Byzantium illustration depicting what appears to be a fishing rod or pole. It is, of course, possible that the use of lengths of wood to aid in the practice of fishing actually took place, but this has not been documented as being a common exercise.

Of the many hooks that have been discovered from the period nearly all have been 2/o or above. This might seem to suggest that only the larger species of fish were sought after although smaller hooks would be more difficult to unearth and would also be more likely to disintegrate during the passage of time. All of the hooks I have seen show a simple round bend design with either an open eye or a spade end and have been made from iron. One such hook, found at West Hythe in Kent and dated to come from the 9th or 10th century, can be seen at the British Museum. The hook itself is approximately four inches long, somewhere between 8/o to 10/o in size, spade ended and is made from iron. The actual design differs little from that of hooks that were used by the early Romans or those used by Sir Izaak Walton. The barb seems oversized by today's standards but this may be due to the need to keep the fish secure on the line whilst 'long-lining' or because it is, as I discovered, by far the most difficult part of producing a hook.

The line itself would have to be strong, not too effected by water and easily obtainable. By far the most common material that would have all the necessary qualities would be that of nettle-hemp. The nettles would be gathered in the Spring and early Summer 7, the leaves stripped off them and the stems immersed in water for several hours. After removing from the water they would be pulped so that the individual strands would peel away producing long, thin fibres. These fibres would then be spun in the same way as flax or wool. The resulting 'yarn' would then be used in the making of fishing line, nets and bow strings. 8 The two main methods employed with hook and line were simple 9 hand lining for single fish and long-lining. The trace used for simple fishing is basically an iron forged hook, nettle-hemp line and stone weight for a sinker. This method would be useful for catching the larger fish in enclosed waters, rivers and from the sea shore.

Nets would have also been used to net off sections of rivers or even complete rivers to trap migratory fish such as salmon, trout and sea trout. They may also have been used to section off breeding areas as the Romans had done a few centuries earlier.

Haaf-netting (from the Norse 'haf', the open sea) was a form of net fishing practised in areas like the Solway Firth mudflats to catch salmon. The nets used are cumbersome affairs - 16 feet (5 meters) of meshed twine slung over a 14 foot pole. The fishermen would form a line and walk up to their chests against the tide in the channel. The haafer holds the net against the water with his left hand and grips the beam with his right. He pulls six meshes with his thumb to make a bag, and when a salmon enters he presses down on a special rung. The haaf floats to the top; the netsman turns his back to the tide, kills the fish with his 'mell', or mallet, and flings it into a special compartment - while concentrating on not being swept away by the strong tidal flow. 10

Although little has been recovered in the way of wicker fish traps, they are referred to in Anglo-Saxon texts 11 and from illustrations from the period. The traps would have mainly been used in flowing rivers and tidal estuaries to catch all manner of fish including eel, salmon, trout, dabs, flounders, etc. They would have been about 5 feet long and would have consisted of two chambers: a large opening funnelling into the main basket.

Along the mudflats on the South Essex coast an aerial survey identified a massive complex of wooden fish-traps, comprising up to 13,000 timber posts, located ½ a mile out to sea. A more detailed investigation carried out by boat has revealed a dozen lines of timber - some of them more than half a mile long- in the Blackwater estuary, 15 miles south of Colchester, dating from the 7th to 10th centuries AD. The timbers were the uprights of wattle fences, the complex containing up to 100,000 square feet or 30,500 square metres of fencing, some of which still survives.

A number of fishing spears has been identified from the   period and these have taken a number of different styles.

The type of fishing that would have taken place with the use   of spears would have involved the larger top-feeding fish   and mammals. The larger and more robust spear would have   been used to hunt for whale, porpoise, seal and sturgeon   whereas the finer spear would have been used for fish such   as salmon, mullet, eel, etc.

Eels were a favoured fish of the period and these were caught by spear too. During the winter months the eel buries itself into the mud together with other eels. By using a spear one can poke around into the muddy bottoms of river or estuary until an 'eel nest' is located; many eels can be caught in this manner.