Fishing rights in Rochester

A medieval king intervenes

I finished filming, last Friday, my part in the second episode of KMTV’s flagship children’s programme, News Nuggets. The two episodes should be airing in the autumn. Their theme is food in medieval Medway, which is part of the county of Kent. The shaded area in the map below shows the borough of Medway in south-east England, about 40 miles (64 km) east of Greater London.

The borough of Medway, south-east England. Wikimedia Commons

I was at Gillingham Pier on the estuary of the River Medway, aboard the paddle steamer Medway Queen. Asking me lots of questions were Kai and Joseph, two year-five students (aged 9-10) from the local Burnt Oak Primary School, and they were ably assisted by the adult presenter of the show, Mariam.

We enjoyed talking all about fish and fishing in the Medway during the medieval period. The two boys particularly wanted to know how medieval people fished in the River Medway.

This led to a discussion of a historical document from 900 years ago, namely a royal writ of Henry I (reigned 1100-1135) concerning the fishing rights of Rochester, just a few miles west along the river estuary from Gillingham Pier.

Source of map: https://www.harbourmastersailingchallenge.co.uk/location/chatham-the-medway/

Henry ordered that the fishing in the ‘new weir of Rochester’ be protected from fishermen fishing in the Thames, the great river that flows through London. As the greater Thames estuary meets the mouth of the smaller Medway (at Sheerness on the map) it was evidently far too easy for Thames fishermen to, in effect, block migratory fish, specifically salmon, from entering the Medway, or at least significantly reduce the number of salmon from doing so. So the king’s order made it an offence against him personally for the Thames fishermen to encroach upon the waters in front of the Medway.

Right, from the purple H: The writ of Henry I ‘Concerning the new weir’ of Rochester. *Textus Roffensis*, folio 187r. By permission of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral.

The boys kindly allowed me to read out the medieval Latin of the writ, and then I explained what a fishing weir was. In short, it was a long V-shaped fishing trap. The V was built by embedding stakes into the river or estuary bed, and attaching hurdles, or fencing, to these. At the apex of the V, willow baskets were placed. Migratory salmon swimming upstream would unwittingly swim into the V and get funnelled into the traps. Ingenious!

If you would like to read a translation of Henry I’s writ, which is really very short, head on over to my new Translations page.

In the meantime, here’s a few pictures from the day, and some of me making the salmon dish that Kai, Joseph and Mariam will be cooking in July on the final day of filming. My recipe will be appearing on the blog in due course.

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