y 



70 THE HERRING IN HISTORY 



Hansa League, whose quartered herrings show 

 the source of her wealth, hke that of Holland 

 after her, to be the humble herring. 



Salted herrings became a medium of exchange 

 and for paying taxes among the Hansard 

 traders, who ousted the Slavs from the herring 

 fishery, and made Wisby in Gothland the head- 

 quarters of the trade. 



In 1238 the Tartars spread desolation through 

 Poland and Hungary, and from this inundation 

 of barbarism from the East emerge certain 

 facts concerning the herring fishery. As 

 already stated, the herrings, which are capri- 

 cious in their migrations, had for some time 

 past deserted the Baltic, thus forcing the 

 Frieslanders, who were in the habit of going 

 there for herring, and even the people of 

 Gothland on whose coasts the herring fishery 

 used to be, to come to Yarmouth i for their 

 cargoes. But so great and general was the 

 consternation caused to nations in the most 

 remote parts of Europe by the approach of the 

 Tartars, that foreigners, who had been accus- 

 tomed to come to Yarmouth, were afraid to do 

 so in that year. The Yarmouth fishermen, 

 deprived of their purchasers, were compelled 

 to sell their herrings at home at a very low 

 price, and even in remote inland districts, so 

 that four or five hundred good herrings could 

 be obtained for one penny, a penny being 



1 As the fish caught off the coast of England were used for food 

 in Sweden, they must have been salted for transit. 



