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<. It is therefore not surprising that we find the fish very
prominent as a sacred emblem in the painting and sculpture of
the primitive church, or that Clement of Alexandria should have
recommended it, among other things, as a device for signet rings or
seals. The fisherman too is frequently represented in early Christian
art, and it is worthy of remark that he more often uses a line and
hook than a net. The references to fish and fishing scattered about
in the writings of the early fathers for the most part reflect the two
ideas of the sacredness of the fish and divine authorization of the
fisherman; the second idea certainly prevailed until the time of Izaak
Walton, for he uses it to justify his pastime. It is also not unlikely
that the practice of fasting (in many cases fish was allowed when meat
was forbidden) gave the art of catching fish additional importance.
It seems at any rate to have been a consideration of weight when
sites were chosen for monasteries in Europe, and in many cases when
no fish-producing river was at hand the lack was supplied by the
construction of fish-ponds. Despite all this, however, save for an
occasional allusion in the early fathers, there is hardly a connecting
link between the literature of Pagan Rome and the literature that
sprang up on the invention of printing. One volume, the _Geoponica_, a
Greek compilation concerning whose authorship and date there has
been much dispute, is attributed in _Bibliotheca Piscatoria_ to
the beginning of the 10th century. It contains one book on fish,
fish-ponds and fishing, with prescriptions for baits, &c., extracted
for the most part from other writers. But it seems doubtful whether
its date should not be placed very much earlier. Tradition makes it
a Carthaginian treatise translated into Greek. A more satisfactory
fragment of fishing literature is to be found in the Colloquy of
AElfric, written (_ad pucros linguae latinae locutionis exercendos_)
towards the end of the same century. AElfric became archbishop of
Canterbury in A.D. 995, and the passage in the Anglo-Saxon text-book
takes honourable rank as the earliest reference to fishing in English
writings, though it is not of any great length. It is to be noted that
the fisher who takes a share ]]>
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