The Name "Herring."

Where does the name "herring" come from ? Probably from a
Teutonic word "Heer" meaning an army. This is an apt name for the
herring, which reaches our coasts in vast armies or shoals.

The herring has always been popular with British folk. In olden
days it was enjoyed in its fresh state only in the fishing villages where it
was landed or in the districts near enough to them to be served by a pack
horse. The rest of the country had to be content with it salted or
"pickled"—for there were no means of rapid transport to carry it inland.
Even so, salt herring made a very pleasant change of diet, and it was held
in high esteem, even by Royalty, because it was realised what an extremely
nutritious food it was.

Although the oldest document relating to our herring fishery and found
in the Chronicle of the Monastery of Evesham is dated 709 A.D. it is
probable that the fishery started at Yarmouth soon after the landing of
Cedric the Saxon in 495. By 1108, Henry I. had made this town a burgh,
for which honour an annual payment was to be made to the King of "ten
milliards of herrings ! "

The Sheriffs of Norwich held thirty-four acres of land in return for
carrying twenty-four herring pasties to the King of England, wherever he
might be. Thus you will see that already the herring was regarded as a
Royal dish, and in 1286 we find a curious clause in the Charter of Great
Yarmouth, requiring the corporation to send 100 herrings baked in
twenty-four pasties to the Sheriffs of Norwich.

In 1270 the Herring Fair was held at Yarmouth for forty days and the
barons of the Cinque Ports sent their officers there to keep the peace.
This they did until the Fair was discontinued in the 18th century.

Before the Norman Conquest large numbers of fishermen came over
to England from Flanders and Normandy, using suitable East Coast centres
as bases for their herring fishery. It is because the ocean bed off our East
Coast is so suitable as a spawning ground that the herring shoals visit it in
preference to other coasts. It has been a splendid thing for Great Britain
for it means that we are in a highly favourable position as regards this
important fishery.

Legislation.

During the 13th century the Norwegians and Dutch had been
developing their herring fisheries. In 1295 we find Edward I. allowing the
Dutch to come to Yarmouth to fish for herring and English subjects were
forbidden to molest them. But this did not prevent international rivalry,
which soon began.

The long struggle between England and Holland which lasted
throughout the reigns of the Stuarts and the years of the Commonwealth
is sometimes stated to have been in reality a struggle for the control of the
herring fisheries in the North Sea. This shows how important the industry
had grown in the eyes of both English and Dutch. Out of this struggle
can be traced the rise of our mercantile marine and ultimately—through
Cromwell's navigation laws—the British Navy itself! Small wonder that
the herring has been called "the fish that has made history."