Was pike on the menu? Exploring the role of freshwater fish in medieval England

Abstract

Historical sources report that some species of freshwater fish were considered luxury food items in England during the Middle Ages. The high retail price associated with species such as pike, salmon and sturgeon, as well as restrictions of fishing rights on rivers, estuaries and natural and artificial ponds, proves their exclusivity and role as symbols of social privilege. In this work, the zooarchaeological evidence from 11 English sites dated between the 11th and the 15th c. AD is discussed. This paper explores the differences between the ranges of freshwater species recovered from different site types, by looking at specific features that could define these fishes as luxury items: in particular, species selection and fish size are investigated as potentially meaningful variables. The size of fish will be used as an indicator of status and interpreted in view of the increasing phenomenon of fishing from artificial fishponds.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Maccarinelli, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2535-5057
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Diet; Status; Fish size; Biometry; Middle Ages; Britain
Dates:	Published: August 2021 Published (online): 14 July 2021 Accepted: 8 June 2021
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Archaeology (Sheffield)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	23 Aug 2021 14:21
Last Modified:	23 Aug 2021 14:21
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Nature
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1007/s12520-021-01373-6
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:177338

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Was pike on the menu? Exploring the role of freshwater fish in medieval England

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