212 Jahnke
Salted herring gained increased importance throughout Europe with the
spread of Christianity. By 1300, the Christian fasting rules claimed 120 to 182
days a year without meat64 and herring was the ideal substitute because of
its durability, ease of sale, and the fact that it was a permissible food under
Catholic fasting laws. From the tenth century onwards we have evidence of
herring on the cathedral island of Breslau65 and from 1035 in the cloister of
St. Gall in Switzerland.66 It can be stated from these discoveries that by the
middle of the eleventh century, salted herring from the Baltic was widely con-
sumed in Western Europe.
At the beginning of the twelfth century, the Rugian fishing grounds were the
main supplier of western markets. Westphalian and Saxonian merchants trav-
eled to that pagan island, driven by demand for herring, even paying tribute to
the pagan priest at the local sanctuary of Arkona.67 After the transformation of
the city of Lübeck into a town with German law in 1158/59, the new immigrated
Westphalian merchants went to the nearby situated island to buy fish there
instead. The new Lubeckian merchants had two crucial advantages: because of
the situation of their city they could easily buy and distribute their products,
and they also possessed the best connection to the Luneburgian saline, which
produced the best salt in the Baltic region.
The Lubeckian merchants focused on concentrating the salt-herring trade
in their town and through their efforts they were able to acquire special privi-
leges at the Rugian herring markets.68 Later, at the end of the twelfth century,
Lubeckian merchants went further north, supplying the Scandinavian farmers
fishing in the Sound area with salt and other products too.
64 Richard C. Hoffmann, Fishers’ Craft and Lettered Art. Tracts on Fishing from the End of the
Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 18; C.M. Woolgar, “Fish produc-
tion, trade and consumption, c1300/1530, ‘Take this Penance now, and afterwards the Fare
will improve’: Seafood and Late Medieval Diet.” In: England’s Sea Fisheries. The commer-
cial Sea Fisheries of England and Wales since 1300, ed. David J. Starkey, Chris Reid and Neil
Ashkroft (London: Chatham Publishing, 2000) 36–44, here 37.
65 Bødker Enghoff, “Fishing in the Baltic,” 69.
66 Carsten Jahnke, “Wege und Absatzmärkte im Handel mit Ostseehering, 1100–1600.
Kontinuität und Wandel,” in Der Ostseeraum und Kontinentaleuropa, 1100–1600, ed.
Detlef Kattinger, Jens E. Olesen and Horst Wernicke, Culture Clash or Compromise viii
(Schwerin: Thomas Helms Verlag, 2004) 131–136, 132.
67 Carsten Jahnke, Silber des Meeres, 20 f. Carsten Jahnke, “The Medieval Herring Fisheries
in the Baltic Sea,” in Louis J. Sicking and Darlene Abreu-Ferreira, eds., The North Atlantic
Fisheries in the Middle Ages and early Modern Period. Interdisciplinary approaches in his-
tory, archaeology and biology. The Northern World vol. 41 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 157–186.
68 Carsten Jahnke, Silber des Meeres, 69–75.