Adriaen Coenen's Fish Book (1580)

Selected double-page spreads from Adriaen Coenen’s Visboek (Fish Book), an epic 800+ page tome on all things fish and fish-related. Coenen began work on this unique book in 1577, at the age of 63, and in three years gathered an unprecedented amount of information on the sea and its coasts, coastal waters, fishing grounds and marine animals. The information was largely gathered in the course of Coenen’s daily work in the Dutch sea-side village of Scheveningen as a fisherman and fish auctioneer and, later on, as wreck master of Holland (allowing him access to every strange creature that washed ashore). Coenen was also a well respected authority in academic circles and used this reputation to receive learned works on the sea from The Hague and Leiden, copied extracts from which find their way into his Fish Book. Indeed, much of the Fish Book borrows and quotes from other texts, including Olaus Magnus‘ Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus.

Strange anecdotes and legends, often recounted in pamphlets, prove a fertile source too – one of the most notable being the case of the “tunnyfish” (f49v) caught in 1561 in the Mediterranean Sea near Ceuta that had tattoo or drawing-like marks on its skin that looked like images of ships. Large swathes of the book are dedicated to reports of strange mythical sightings of creatures such as the “zeebisschop”, a creature described as possessing a hat, a wand, slippers, a chasuble, and gloves; or a 17 foot long sea monster (f52v) which appeared on the Brazilian coast in 1564 standing on its hind flippers. As well as the eclectic and detailed text, Coenen’s book is, of course, notable for its exquisite manner of presentation. Every page becomes a work of art in its own right, decorated with painted borders and delightful watercolours. Two years after its completion, Coenen produced another book this time dedicated solely to whales, known as the Whale Book (now housed in Antwerp).

The digital copies of the Visboek presented here have been spliced together to create the double spread and are all sourced from The National Library of the Netherlands which has digitised the whole of the Visboek and includes a wonderful (flash-based) digital presentation with extensive notes and commentary on individual pages, if you are interested to learn more. (Courtesy Public Domain Review) Click photo to enlarge.

One of the finest pictures in the Visboeck is the flying fish (above), a species unknown in European waters. Coenen freely borrowed from other fish books of his day. He also had the opportunity to see many strange species or hear many a fish tale from the seagoing vessels visiting his seaside town of Scheveningen.

This painting above was made nearly a hundred years after Coenen. Yet the beach was probably much the same as when, late in life, Coenen conducted the town's fish auctions there.

One of the wondrous aspects of the Visboek is the way Coenen ranges bloggily all around the great tree of knowledge. In the page above, he describes the life cycle of "tree geese," or barnacles (I think).
Tree geese were curiosities dating back to at least the 12th century. They were believed to come from far northern regions and to fall somewhere between plants and animals. The best I can make of this Googlemangled passage is that the tree geese grew on trees but wouldn't come fully to life until they fell from the trees into the water. A different species, the goose barnacle, could grow right on the trunk of a tree. And a third kind could live on wood decaying in water.

He complained that jellyfish were useless, if not worse, and wondered why nature put them into the sea, calling the phenomenon "incomprehensible to man." 
In Coenen's village of Scheveningen, the fishermen were burdened by jellyfish, which "hang from their nets as firm as glue" and had to be loosened by hand—a process that left the men numbed from repeated envenomations.

 

Coenen noted that salmon were known for their great strength and endurance and that only the wealthiest citizens could afford to send fishermen to sea to catch them. Salmon nets were almost prohibitively expensive since they needed to be much stronger than those used to catch plaice, haddock, or cod.
The 16th century saw wild oscillations in salmon abundance. In Coenen's father's time, salmon was rare to find or catch, even though worth a fortune. In Coenen's youth, there was an oversupply and prices fell. Around 1580, they became scarce again and prices rose. 

 

Then, as now, there seemed to be a lot of interest in sea life that might potentially eat you, such as this "Monstra in Nordwebra"—maybe a great white shark?

A curious new species was discovered in 1431 in the waters off Poland. It was called the zeebisschop—the sea bishop (above). Coenen sourced his information from the 1517 Great Chronicle of Holland, an authoritative work in his time. 
The zeebisschop possessed a hat, a wand, slippers, a chasuble, and gloves, just like a real bishop. It also possessed a head, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, arms, hands, and feet, and yet it was a cold fish. Coenen found this to be evidence of the wonderful works of God, and was inspired to write poem about it. Make what you will of the tortured translation:

The bishops are not only was That means there are large parried Also grows in the sea such a bishop, a serious biter  And does he not been wearing a miter.

In 1564 a sea monster appeared in Brazil. Coenen portrayed it on the bank of a river, standing on its hind feet or flippers, 17 feet long, and with a velvety skin. It uttered loud cries. 

The locals attacked and killed it with swords and bows and arrows. Was it a manatee? Or a fur seal far from home?

The most famous and wonderful sea creatures of Coenen's time were the mermaids and mermen. He wrote pages about them but always quoting others. He remained skeptical: "But I can not find a man do this day who with his own eye in the year 1579 has seen one."
 

In Coenen's time there were stories of the existence of strange fish-people something along the lines of the wolf-people we know today. He wrote of a woman found in 1403 in the Dutch town of Purmer, who swam in the sea searching for food, slept in the water, and was covered with moss and slime.

 Coenen had never seen the fierce-looking walrus he depicted in the Visboek. He listed several other names for this animal: elephant seal, water lilies, and "a strange sea horse." The accompanying text is in German and recounts the capture of these wonderful creatures in the distant past in waters between Africa and Spain.

The local townswomen gathered their courage and captured this wild woman, cleaned her up, and took her to Haarlem, where she remained a curiosity for many years. Eventually she learned to eat normal food, and to spin wool, but not to speak. 

Even in the 16th century fishing was a sport enjoyed by people who did other things for a living. Coenen wrote that "craftsmen" from the cities took pleasure in fishing in the waterways and canals, and that the inhabitants of coastal villages who were not professional fisherman still fished for fun in the summer.

The ocean sunfish, or mola mola, was a great rarity in Dutch waters. Coenen saw only three in his life. In 1562 a large zonvis (above) was caught by a local fisherman and Coenen bought the fish and (best I can tell from the translation) sent it out with a man who took it around Delft and The Hague, exhibiting it for a fee. Coenen later dried the fish and sold it to an adventurer (I'm not at all confident of anything about my interpretation of this translation).

 

Coenen more or less quoted from the Swedish ecclesiastic and writer Olaus Magnus, whose book Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (History of the Northern Peoples), described how the people of the far north employed every part of a whale. They used the skin to make belts, bags, and clothing. They used the blubber to smooth and waterproof their boats and to lubricate their wagon wheels. The smallest bones were used as fuel for warming and cooking fires. The large bones were used as building materials—the only such materials in a realm devoid of trees. From the ribs, vertebrae, and other bones, the people made whole houses, plus tables and benches. 

Olaus Magnus imagined that people living in whale-bone houses often dreamt they were in danger on the sea and that storms threatened to drown them.

Coenen wrote how fishermen lured whales to their boats by playing flutes, then harpooned them. 

On another page, he described how whales love "zeekalveren" (young seals), herring, and other oily fish, and how they take great risks in catching them by swimming into shallow water, where they sometimes accidentally beach. The locals considered this a great windfall and—to prevent the whales from floating free on the tide—rushed to tie them down with ropes and anchors.

Maybe this explains the rope around the tail of the sperm whale in the Jan Saenredam engraving I wrote about in an earlier post. Maybe this is what inspired Jonathon Swift's people of Lilliput?

Based on the writings of Olaus Magnus, Coenen described  the process of fishing with bells and other noise. In the top image you can see a fish caught in a trap with a hanging bell. Some fish were spellbound by certain sounds, said Coenen. 

The lower image shows a large group of dolphins circling a boat when a fisherman played harp—a sound that "obviously dolphins love." After the performance, the dolphins beat their tails hard against the water as a token of their appreciation. However, this was seen as a bad omen, since soon thereafter a heavy storm blew up.

Here Coenen portrays a huge herd of whales that (as best I can tell) passed by the the Caps Hondsbosse seawall, leaping and breaching, in the same year William of Orange (the Dutch one not the English one) was married. The old people said: "They draw to the bride."

But Coenen wrote that gatherings of whales like this passed by Scheveningen twice a year, that they always swam in the same direction, and that it might be two or three hours before the herd had completely passed by. Almost always afterward, he said, there would come a severe storm or lightning.

Additional images and text courtesy of Deep Blue Home