Crowle – Fisheries 1372

Axholme before Vermuyden

The fisheries on the River Don at Crowle were an important feature of the landscape as evidenced in the Domesday Book, which reported 31 fisheries in Crowle, more than any other town in Lincolnshire.

The Coucher Book of Selby is a fourteenth-century cartulary — a register of charters and deeds — that chronicles the history of Selby Abbey from its founding under William the Conqueror in 1069 through to the mid-fifteenth century. This remarkable manuscript offers an invaluable window into the legal, spiritual, and administrative life of one of Yorkshire’s great Benedictine monasteries.

Transcriptions of the Latin charters, edited by J. T. Fowler were published by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in 1891 & 1893. As Selby Abbey was the Lord of the Manor of Crowle (which included Eastoft, Luddington and Garthorpe) these documents provide a mine of information about the area.

One of the documents is a manorial presentment of fishing customs, made by a jury of twelve at the Eastoft court of Crowle manor in 1372, establishing and codifying the rights and regulations governing fishing in the common waters of the lordship. It represents the abbey exercising its manorial jurisdiction over one of the most economically significant resources of this Trent-side community.

The seasonal regulations are carefully graduated: poll-nets may be used between Michaelmas and Lammas from sunrise to the undern hour of mid-morning; lade-nets between Easter and Lammas only in the afternoon; and elgers (Eel spears) at any time. The complete prohibition on poll-net fishing between Lammas and Michaelmas — the late summer and early autumn period — likely reflects a conservation practice protecting fish during their spawning season, demonstrating a sophisticated empirical understanding of fish ecology.

Mesh size regulation by finger and thumb measurements is a practical solution to the problem of enforcing minimum mesh sizes without standardised measuring instruments: two fingers to the second joint for poll-nets, one thumb to the second joint for bow-nets, providing a personal but reasonably consistent standard accessible to any court.

“Piscibus capiendis cum pedibus conculcando” — taking fish by trampling with the feet. This vivid detail describes the practice of wading through shallows and driving fish into nets by foot, a technique that was evidently familiar enough to require specific regulation limiting it to prevent abuse.

The legges and rakes are technical terms for specific types of fixed weir fishery construction: legges being the main weir structures and rakes the channels or runs associated with them, all of which were reserved to those holding rented fisheries rather than being available to common fishers.

The link between land tenure and fishing rights is made explicit: a person who does not hold land or tenement of the lord — and therefore does not contribute to the communal maintenance of ditches, sewers, banks, and roads — has no right to fish in the common water. Access to the fishery is thus tied directly to participation in the communal agricultural obligations of the manor, a principle consistent with the drainage maintenance agreement of the Marsildyk document immediately preceding this one in the series.

“Anglice dicitur underon” — called in English undern. The scribe’s gloss here, providing the English vernacular term for the sixth hour of the day, is a rare moment of linguistic self-consciousness in this predominantly Latin document series, acknowledging that the practical terminology of the fishing community existed in English even when being recorded in formal Latin.

The full translation of the document is as follows;

CRULL, CONCERNING FISHING
At the court held at Estoft on Friday, the day after the feast of Saint Oswald, in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and seventy-two.

Inquisition taken concerning divers articles by the following twelve jurors, namely: William Skoth, John de Aland, John son of Richard, Ranulph Layke, Robert Layke, John Galt, Robert Grunne, Robert Cult, William Pacok, Stephen Kyng, William Colson, and Thomas Marshall.

Who present that the tenants of Crull have from ancient times been accustomed and ought still to be accustomed to fish in the common water at all times of the year with poll-nets, from sunrise to sunset, for the taking of fish, but with lade-nets only from midday, namely from dinner time until sunset, and this except from the time of Easter until Lammas. Item, they say that they have from ancient times been accustomed, and ought still to be accustomed, to take fish with elgers whenever it pleases them.

Inquisition taken by the oath of the jurors whose names are written below. Who say that the custom anciently used in court, and which ought by right to be observed, is that no inhabitant of the aforesaid town nor any other person ought to fish with poll-nets between the feasts of Saint Peter in Chains and Saint Michael, neither in separate water nor in common water. And thereupon it is enjoined upon all and each of the tenants of Crull that they shall not make use of this henceforth in future, under penalty of half a mark and forfeiture of their nets.

Item, they say that the ancient approved custom concerning fishing and the manner of fishing is as follows, namely that every fisherman having fisheries at rent must proceed to fish in his rented fisheries or in the common water, beginning at sunrise and not before, and returning at sunset and not after. Nevertheless, by the grace of the lord, tenants of this kind have a more ample licence.
Ithey say that both tenants and residents upon the lordship in the town of Crull may lawfully fish with nets called poll-nets, which shall be of a mesh wide enough that two fingers of a man may enter up to the second joint, between the feasts of Saint Michael and Saint Peter in Chains, beginning at sunrise and continuing until the sixth hour of the day, which in English is called undern.
Item, they ought to fish with lade-nets between the feasts of Easter and Saint Peter in Chains, beginning after midday, namely after dinner, and continuing until sunset.
Item, they say that every tenant holding land or tenement in bondage may have and use and put into the common water as many as thirty nets in English called bow-nets, of which the meshes shall be of a width such that a man’s thumb may enter the meshes up to the second joint.
Item, it is not lawful for any person so fishing to take his boat across into the water whilst he is fishing for fish by trampling with his feet, but he may take whatsoever he can gain with nets and by driving or striking with poles.
Item, they say that it is not lawful for any person to fish between the weirs or fisheries called legges, or in the rakes pertaining to the same, unless the water shall have overflowed the banks of the channel of the Don and of the Lades, where the rented fisheries are constructed, and this only for those who hold the rented fisheries.
Item, it is not lawful for any person to fish with a net of closer mesh than is expressed above, under penalty of forfeiture of the same net and heavy amercement.
Item, they say that it is not lawful for any tenant holding land, tenement, or fishery, nor for any other person whatsoever, to keep with him any person fishing, except only one member of his household.
Item, they say that it is not lawful for any tenant or other person to put their nets called poll-nets in the water and leave them there overnight, under penalty of forfeiture of the same and heavy amercement.
Item, they say that although a person holds one weir or other fishery, and does not hold a toft or land of the lord for which he is bound to perform common work on ditches, sewers, banks, and roads, he ought not to have common to fish in the common water.
And thereupon it is enjoined upon all and each, both the lord’s tenants and others, that no one shall henceforth presume to fish with any nets, or to place fish traps near the lord’s weirs, wherever they may be, under penalty of forty shillings.
Item, it is enjoined upon all and each of the lord’s tenants that they shall diligently inquire and present at every court all those, both the lord’s tenants and others, who make use of fishing with nets bound together.

An Anglo-Saxon fish weir as depicted in “Working with water in medieval Europe:” by Paolo Squatriti

Squatriti, P. (Ed.). (2000). Working with water in medieval Europe: Technology and resource-use (Vol. 3). Brill.

Selby Abbey. The Coucher Book of Selby: From the Original MS. in the Possession of Thomas Brooke. Edited by J. T. Fowler. Durham: Printed for the Society, 1891–1893.
Available at the Internet Archive: