Introduction

Herring is – both today and historically – a welcome guest in the waters of northern Europe, having been exploited by various European powers at different times. In the Middle Ages, the Danish king hosted Europe's then largest fishery for herring at the Sound. By the 17th century, the Dutch high seas herring fishery had risen to prominence and dominance, whereas the 18th century saw the growth of a number of different major herring fisheries in European waters. In the 19th century, Scottish and Norwegian herring fisheries came to dominate the European market for salted herring. During this entire period, salted herring was one of the principal bulk commodities to be traded in the North Sea and Baltic area, and was the most important type of food transported between the two seas in the early modern period with the exception of grain.

This chapter argues that it is possible to calculate the total size of the North Sea herring industry and the herring fisheries of the individual countries around the North Sea over the 1600-1850 period.

Moreover, while the largest producers of herring in the North Sea area have given rise to speculations as to their size over the past 400 years, several smaller-scale herring fisheries around the North Sea are less well described in modern fisheries historiography. However, since they all contributed to the overall production of salted herring in the North Sea area, the herring fisheries based in northern France, Flandern, the German North Sea ports of Emden and Bremen, as well as the Danish herring fisheries in the Limfjord along the North Sea, and the town of Altona, outside of Hamburg are all included in this chapter.

How much?

Surprisingly, only a handful of attempts have been made at estimating the total production of herring in Northern Europe during the last 30 some years, while many of the existing figures are highly exaggerated.

Within the field of marine biology, the search for mechanisms and dynamics behind the wildly fluctuating North Sea herring populations has been at forefront of research for the last 100 years. In view of the fact that these fluctuations are likely to be caused by some sort of environmental and therefore long-term changes, this analysis will require long-term time series to provide insight into catch rates and the scale of herring production.