60 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



harbours than the local fishing -boats. We know also from 

 contemporary Flemish records that as early as the first half 

 of the twelfth century fishermen from Nieuport and other 

 places in Flanders fished from large vessels for herrings with 

 drift-nets in August and September in the northern parts of 

 the North Sea. 



The men from France and Flanders alluded to, no doubt 

 continued to fish each season down the east coast of England 

 to the mouth of the Thames, as they did later and do still. 

 About the period mentioned, Yarmouth was a great fishing 

 centre, and was frequented by foreign merchants Flemings, 

 French, Swedes, and Frieslanders who purchased and cured 

 herrings; but the earliest notice of foreign fishermen on the 

 English coast is in the year 1274, shortly after Edward I. came 

 to the throne. Complaint was then made that during a time 

 of truce the English fishermen had been attacked by the Flemish 

 disguised as fishermen and twelve hundred of them killed. 1 

 On the other hand, the Countess of Flanders complained that 

 twenty-two of her subjects who had been fishing on the coast of 

 England and Scotland, and had gone ashore at Berwick to rest 

 themselves and get provisions, had been seized, with their nets, 

 at Norham and thrown into the castle there. 2 About twenty 

 years later, Edward I. issued a mandate to John de Botetourt, 

 the Warden of the coast of Yarmouth, and to the bailiffs of 

 that town, saying that he understood that many men from 

 Holland, Zealand, and Friesland would shortly come "to fish 

 in our sea off Yarmouth," and commanding them to make 

 public proclamation once or twice a -week forbidding any 

 molestation or injury to be done to them, but that they should 

 rather be helped to pursue their fishing to advantage. 3 The 

 number of English fishermen stated to have been killed by the 

 Flemings in the encounter mentioned above, indicates how 

 extensive the fishery then was. This also appears a few years 

 later, when the Flemings resorted to a similar device ; for in 



1 Fosdera, ii. 23. " Gent de Flaundres estre venuz sur mer, come Pescheurs," &c. 



2 Ibid., ii. 37. The Flemish fishermen had probably gone up the Tweed after 

 salmon. 



3 Ibid., ii. 688, dated 28th September. " Quia intelleximus quod multi 

 homines, de partibus Hollandiae, Zelandise et etiam Frislandiae, qui sunt de ami- 

 citia nostra, ad piscandum in mari nostro, prope Jernemuth," &c. 



