Building a Church out of Herring: A 15th-Century Fishing Village
The fifteenth-century church of Walberswick, a Suffolk fishing village, stands in ruins. Most of it was taken down in the late seventeenth century because it was too big — the nave was said to have enough room for a thousand parishioners — and by this time the village had diminished into poverty. But its size speaks of the wealthy, ambitious herring-fishing community that built it when the village was at its peak. The church was financed largely through a system of “doles”, voluntary payments made by the fishermen, taken from a share of the catch. The dole system was used widely in the east coast fishery, but it is poorly-documented and little understood. But from Walberswick there survives a book kept by the churchwardens, which records the annual “reckoning of the doles”, when the masters of the herring fleet accounted to the parish for their contributions. Drawing on this extraordinary record, this paper explores how the dole system worked and its effects on maritime community in late-medieval England.
Date: 14 May 2025, 17:00
Venue: Rewley House, 1-7 Wellington Square OX1 2JA
Venue Details: and online via livestream
Speaker: Dr Tom Johnson (Oriel College, Oxford)
Organising department: Department for Continuing Education
Part of: Medieval Society and Landscape
Booking required?: Required
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Audience: Public
Editor: Belinda Clark