84 THE HERRING IN HISTORY 



About the year 1397 the Fishmongers' Com- 

 pany of London had their privileges defined 

 by charter, and, in the grant, the rights of the 

 vintners to export clothing and herrings to 

 Gascony were carefully saved. 



Evidence of our dominion of the sea appears 

 in the year 1402, when the magistrates of 

 Bruges complained to King Henry of severe 

 injuries to their trade, particularly to two fisher- 

 men of Ostend and Brielle in Holland, who 

 were taken prisoners by the English while 

 fishing in the North Sea and carried to Hull, 

 though they had lowered their sails as a token 

 of submission the moment the English had 

 called to them. 



The English, however, were not usually the 

 aggressors. The correspondence between the 

 British Government and the Hansa League 

 in 1405 contains various complaints of in- 

 juries suffered by English subjects ; among 

 those enumerated are the grievances of a 

 citizen of London, who had been plundered of 

 5 lasts of herring in the North Sound, and of 

 four merchants of Yarmouth and Norwich, who 

 in 1394 were robbed of woollen cloth to the value 

 of £666 ISs, 4fd., which they had put on board 

 a Prussian vessel. Injury had also been done 

 to vessels belonging to the Norfolk towns of 

 Cley, Wiverton and Lynn. 



In 1409 the Hansards on their side were 

 complaining that the oflicers of Southampton 

 had overcharged them two shillings on every 





