Saga - 2018, Page 123

nes in the east — and that summer was the principal fishing season. Summer fish-
eries imply a specialised workforce, suggesting that under this earlier system
inland farmers traded for fish rather than providing the labour themselves.
Indications of a winter fishing season only appear in the 14th century and the fish-
ing stations in the Southwest — around Reykjanes — seem to have started to
attract migrant labour only in the course of the 15th century. The shift appears to
have been gradual. The northern fisheries may have declined in absolute terms in
the course of the Late Middle Ages and by 1500 they had certainly become over-
shadowed by the more efficient and profitable fisheries in the south and west.
Several factors affected these developments. Marine fishing is attested as an inte-
gral part of the household economy in the earliest settlements — inland as well
as coastal — in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. Its relative importance grew
in the course of the 10th century, while significant increases are seen in the 12th and
13th centuries, related to increased domestic consumption. Fish exports had begun
in the late 13th century and stockfish had become a major export commodity by
the 1340s. There was therefore clearly a trend towards increased demand, first
domestic and later international, which affected decisions about where and when
to catch the fish. Judging from the effects of rising sea temperatures on the cod’s
spawning runs in the 20th century, it can be inferred that there would have been
a general southward shift of the Icelandic cod stocks with colder climate setting
in from the 13th century onwards. The extent to which this would have affected
the small-scale (in terms of off-take of the total stock) inshore fisheries is uncer -
tain, however, and it may only have become significant once English fishing ves-
sels started fishing in deeper Icelandic waters after 1410. Increased production
required more labour and this seems to have been provided primarily by farmers
and farmhands who could only absent themselves from their farms during
winter. The shift to a winter fishing pattern is about labour control, towards a
regime which could increase output without upsetting the balance of social rela-
tions.
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