284 ^' ^' 1220. 



of the opulence of that town. From the fame authentic record we learn, 

 that Dunwich (then a place of confiderable trade, if compared with the 

 neighbouring towns) paid annually 60,000 herrings to the king, and 

 Sandwich paid annually 40,000 to the monks, at that time, and perhaps 

 long before ; but whether thole herrings were frefh or faked, we are 

 not informed. We find herrings enumerated among the articles charg- 

 ed with tolls or duties at Newcaftle upon Tine in the reign of Henry 1 ; 

 [Brand's Hi/I. of Newcaftle, V. ii, p. 131] and in that of Henry II the 

 abundance of them on the Englifh coafl is noticed by Henry of Hunt- 

 indon : (fee above, p. 344) and herrings made a part of the revenue 

 of the biihoprick of Chichefter. [Madox's Hift. of the excheq. f. 10, § 3.] 

 The refort of foreign merchants to Yarmouth, inferred in King John's 

 charter to that town, (fee above, p. 374) together with the certainty of 

 its being a ftaple market for the exportation of herrings foon after *, 

 warrants a belief that it was now the principal feat of the herring fifhery 

 upon the coafl of England : and upon that account William of Trump- 

 ington, abbat of St. Albans, was induced to purchafe a large houfe f in 

 Yarmouth, ' in order to lay up fifli, efpecially herrings, which were bought 

 ' in by his agents at the proper feafon, to the ineftimable advantage, as 

 ' well as honour, of the abbay.' \M. Paris, Vit. p. 126.] As we thus 

 know from undoubted authority, that herrings were ftored up at Yar- 

 mouth, and as our prefumption, that they were alfo an article of com- 

 merce and exported, will prefently be turned into certainty, it is evi- 

 dent that they muft have been preferved with fait. But in what refped 

 the antient method of curing them differed from the improved method 

 invented by Van Beukelen, who, according to fome of the Netherland 

 hiftorians, was the firfl curer and exporter of herrings, it is apparently 

 impoffible to tell. 



From the unqueftionable authority of the public records we know, 

 that there was alfo a fifhery of at leaft fome confequence on the fouth- 

 weft cOafl of England, and that an improved method of faking the fifli 

 had been praflifed before this time by Peter ChivaUer, who appears to 

 have had the king's licence for a monopoly of his method, and that 

 Peter dc Ferars gave the king twenty marks in the year 1221, and 

 twenty more in 1222, and probably alfo in other years, for a licence to 

 fait fifli, as Chivalier nfed to do. [Mag. rot. 6 Hen. Ill, rot. 9, b, Coniub. 

 in Madox's Hift. of the excheq. f. 13, § 4.] As Perars appears to have liv- 



* This will be further ilkiftraleJ under the year coft fifty marks ; and the fame abbat bought a 



1238. I may here alfo obfcrve, that in the year lioufe, or rather a court of houfes, in London 



1256 the burgelfes of Yarmouth reprcfentcd to the (wliere they were probably dearer than in Yar- 



kin" that their principal fupport was derived from mouth), as extenfive as a great pdacc, with cha- 



the fifliery ; and a record in the year 1306 Ihows pel, ftables, garden, a well, &c. for a hundred 



that it was the herring fiihcry. Sec Braily on burghs, marks of purcliafe-moncy, to which he added fifty 



Append, pp. 2, 6. marks for improvements. \M. farts, Vit. pp. 125, 



\ It muft have been a very large houfv, for it 126.] 



