"In the twelfth century, fish had already made their mark omn the lansdcape. All along the Danish,..."

In the twelfth century, fish had already made their mark omn the lansdcape. All along the Danish, Swedish, and Slav coasts, the people who dared live there were usually fishermen, collected into the huddle of huts, drying-poles, and sheds which was called fiskegard… the organisation and development of fisheries was a matter of politics… Already in the twelfth century the piscatura was a form of lordship along the coast, on rivers and lakes… The fish itself was an acceptable token of power and could be paid in tribute or tithe; the islanders of Oland, off southeast Sweden, make their sole acknowledgement of loyalty to the king at Uppsala by sending him an annual present of herring, and in the 1170s Bishop Absalon of Roskilde let the Slavs of Rugen present him with a single fish in recognition of his sea-patrols… When the warriors of the king of Poland reached the Pomeranian coast in 1107 they sang of their conquest in these terms: 

Salted fish and stinking, once they brought us from afar,
Now the boys have caught ‘em fresh, and all alive they are!