CHAPTER XV. 



ON THE PRICE OF FISH. 



IN the period before the Reformation, a fish diet was at 

 times a religious obligation, and it is very probable that the 

 regulations of the Roman Church made those who lived 

 by the capture, the curing, and the sale of fish averse to 

 the Reformed ritual and practice. The Legislature, perhaps 

 with an eye to this sentiment, attempted to enforce a fish 

 diet at certain seasons and on certain days with an avowed 

 motive in the maintenance of a national industry, and with 

 the view of supplying a training for seamen. Besides, it 

 was very well known that the Dutch made much profit by 

 their enterprise in the fisheries of the German Ocean, from 

 which the English governments tried to exclude them. Sel- 

 dcn employed his great learning and skill in arguing for this 

 monopoly, and Grotius, so grievously wronged by the Orange 

 party in Holland, answered him. 



Still, though my record of fish prices is not nearly so copious 

 as it was in the last two volumes, it is fairly continuous for 

 certain kinds of fish. Only four years fail me for one kind 

 of fish, only eleven for another kind, though in the latter 

 I have been obliged to draw on the Oxford returns of salt 

 fish, under the name of salsavicnta, in which I recognise the 

 large ling of the other accounts. These two are haberdens 

 and great ling. The former of these, caught in the German 

 Ocean and principally off Aberdeen, got this name from the 

 Scottish city in which they were cured. The latter were 



VOL. v. EC 



