North Atlantic Fisheries Revolution, c.1400-1700: climate, ocean productivity, and markets

• In Event: Navigating the North Atlantic Past through Archaeology, History and the Environmental Humanities

Abstract

In 1497, John Cabot returned to Bristol from a voyage across the North Atlantic. He told of waters so thick with fish that they could be lifted straight on board in baskets. Within a few years, fishermen from all over Western Europe made the journey across the Atlantic. This was the beginning of the ‘Fish Revolution’ of the early-modern world.

The Fish Revolution was one of the first examples of the disrupting effects of globalization and climate change. Fish was a high-priced, limited resource in the Late Middle Ages. But the Grand Banks fishery suddenly offered abundant high-quality low-priced catches to the European market. At the same time climate worsened as the Little Ice Age drove down sea temperatures and changed marine ecosystems.

The consequences of the Fish Revolution were dire for fishermen along the European coasts from the Irish Sea right up to Northern Norway. As they caught less cod locally and had to sell at higher prices, these outcompeted fishermen had the choice of migrating across the ocean or give up fishing. Many fishing settlements were deserted as inhabitants took to the road to seek casual work in agriculture or towns.

In recent years we have all been affected by the impact of global change. We want to know if we can untangle the role of prices and temperatures as drivers of the fish revolution, and I want to know how people understood and responded to the challenges of globalization and climate change. Perhaps the fish revolution is a distant mirror for today.

The paper will specifically ask the following questions:

1 Were the NW Atlantic waters more productive than the NE Atlantic during the fish revolution?
2 What were the climatic and market drivers of the fish revolution?

Author

• Poul Holm, Trinity College Dublin