description
The records, which indirectly substantiate the existence of fishing and sustenance by fish caught in Istra, date from the first half of the 6th century. This was the so-called coastal fishing, for the littoral population had, according to the common law, a right of fishing along its coast. In the mediaeval Europe, when the Frankish feudal social order was established, the right of fishing became one of the ruler's rights. The fishing rights, however, were in fact appropriated or obtained, with deeds of donation, by temporal and ecclesiastical lords as well as by towns. The same stood for Istra; in its western, coastal part, the right to use the major part of coastal waters was gradually obtained by the town communes of Trieste, Muggia, Koper, Izola, Piran, Umag, etc. ...