CHRIST'S HALF-DOLE: AN EAST ANGLIAN FISHING CUSTOM.
By W. B. Gerish.
The ancient custom of paying a tribute to the Church on the harvest of the sea comes, I think, within the domain of the folklorist. It was never a tithe, correctly speaking, as by law fish taken in the sea or river were not titheable, although if taken in enclosed water they were. Originally, therefore, a free-will offering—the origin of which dates from the earliest times, as old, perhaps, as Christianity itself, or in another form possibly even older, and given by the fisher-folk at Yarmouth, Gorleston, and Lowestoft, with the idea of securing a safe voyage and heavy catch of fish—it became in course of time a custom, and was afterwards assumed to be a right which the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, demanded and enforced. At one time it must have formed no inconsiderable item in the value of the livings. In the reign of Edward III., the half-dole at Yarmouth realised the large sum of 700 marks (about £466), but in the reign of Henry VIII. it had fallen as low as 60 marks.
Mr. J. W. de Caux in his book on the Herring and Herring-Fishery states (p. 98-9):
"From time to time efforts were made to shake off this incubus, and as late as 1845 the Rev. F. Cunningham, vicar of Lowestoft, summoned a fisherman named John Roberts 'for having refused or neglected to pay tithes for his fish.' The case was argued for the defendant by Mr. J. H. Tillett of Norwich, who contended that the 'tithe did not arise,' as was stated in the information, 'in the parish of Lowestoft, but in the sea,' and that therefore, as it was neither legal nor just, it could not be enforced.' The magistrates, however, found for the complainant, and made an order for
