January 1413

[These articles were copied from a document issued by bailiffs and community on 25 January 1413, in which they agreed to accept a set of ordinances made by a 10-burgess committee they had appointed for that purpose – apparently a settlement of concerns over local merchants having too much control over the herring trade. By this period, the fishery was much less productive than it had been a century earlier; the scarcity and price of herring had increased, making it more important to the lesser townsmen that they had access to this high-protein food without the interference of middlemen.]