Stock-fish. 
Herrings. 
62 ON THE PLACE OF FISH IN 
the yere of the Reyne of Kynge Herry the vj™ aftyr 
the Conquest xxv"".” 
This acknowledgment also contains endorsement 
of receipts on account written by the creditor or his 
agent. The original is in Holcot’s writing. 
Stock-fishmonger was a regular branch of trade in 
medieval times. Salt herrings, red and white, salmon, 
eels, sturgeon, lampreys, haddock, lyng, morucz 
(which are said to be cod), mulvells, melyng, hake, 
haburden, cropling, dogdrave, and hard, stock and 
salt fish, were all cured. Fish was then expensive. 
In those days whale and porpoise were favourite 
dishes, as well as conger eels. Piscaries were very 
valuable property, farmed by owners or let at high 
rents. The eel fishery of Wythornesemere is made 
the object of an annual account and audit on the part 
of the Countess Isabella de Fortibus, as was also the 
salmon fishery of Westshene, the property of the 
King (Edward II.). The piscary of Dibden was 
rented by fishermen under the Provost and Corpora- 
tion of God’s House in Southampton ; and the fishing 
in Cherwell at Oxford was let by the warden and 
fellows of Merton, whenever this Corporation did not 
consume its produce in their own commons. 
Herrings were usually bought by the thousand 
(1,200), occasionally by the last (containing ten such 
thousand). They were purchased sometimes in very 
large quantities, as, for instance, in Winchester in 1259 
on behalf of the Bishops ; at Rochester, for the purpose 
of victualling the castle against the siege, 1263; at 
Sandwich, and especially at Acle, where Roger Bigod 
appears to have had a castle. Large quantities were 
bought at Wolrichston against harvest time; the 
