THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 9 



explicitly allows the said merchants to have their own 

 boats and implements "of fishery in Schoonen aforesaid, 

 and use them and fish at will, paying a tax of half a 

 Schoonen merk on each boat, and no more." A certain 

 toll on herring imported by Dutch fishermen is established 

 by the same edict. There were regular and privileged 

 markets for herring and other fish in the Netherlands even 

 before this period ; such market rights were granted to 

 the town of Brouwershaven in 1 344, and to that of Naarden 

 in 1355, by the Counts of Holland then reigning ; and in 

 1388 another fish market was established at Katwijk, a 

 village on the North Sea coast.* The fact of Dutch sea 

 fishery having had considerable extension in the latter part 

 of the Middle Ages is further placed beyond doubt 

 by an order issued by Edward I in 1295,! by which the 

 said King " having understood that many people from 

 Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, who are our friends, will 

 shortly come and fish in our sea off Yarmouth," lays his 

 commands in " custodi orae maritimae snae JernemittJi 

 and Baillivis suis de Jernemuth" to see that these foreigners 

 be treated civilly, and not molested, robbed, or plundered, 

 by the king's subjects.^ 



Such scanty documents as these are all the footing on 

 which a notion of the extent of Dutch sea fisheries can be 

 based, up to the end of the fourteenth century. But, records 

 failing, it may be assumed as certain that their produce 

 cannot have gone far beyond the necessities of immediate 

 home consumption, so long as no proper method of pre- 



* Van Mieris, Groot. Charterboek der Graven van Holland, 

 Zeeland, (enz.), vols. ii. pp. 688, 826, and iii. pp. 498-9. 



f Luzac, Hollands Rijkdom, vol. iii. p. 57. v. Mieris, Charterboek, 

 vol. i. p. 566. 



\ Luzac, Hollands Rijkdom, vol. i. p. 136. 



E. 8. C 



