Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages

Les Harding is the author of Exploring the Avalon, Historic St.
John’s: The City of Legends, The Voyages of Lesser Men: Thumbnail
Sketches in Canadian Exploration and The Journeys of Remarkable Women:
Their Travels on the Canadian Frontier.

This scholarly work by Richard C. Hoffmann, a professor of history at
York University, consists of three lengthy medieval texts on
fishing—How to Catch Fish (1493), Fishing Advice from Tegernsee Abbey
(circa 1500), and Dialogue between a Hunter and Fisher (1539). The first
two documents are in German, the last in Spanish. The original languages
are reproduced on the left-hand page with the English translation
opposite. The texts are the oldest known primary sources on fishing in
the Middle Ages. Each text is accompanied by a detailed chapter
outlining the cultural, ecological, material, and social contexts in
which it was written and read. Maps, illustrations from the texts,
copious notes, and an extensive bibliography also are included.