In 1386, the mayor of London wanted answers to a question that was bothering the entire city. Why had all the fish disappeared from the river Thames? An official inquiry quickly identified those fishermen who were using illegal traps and nets, but they were small fry. The real culprit was one of the most powerful women in England, the Abbess of Barking. In the past, Barking Abbey's income had come from farming reclaimed marshland along the river. But the climate was changing, and had sent a series of sea surges far upriver, punching holes in embankments and flooding low-lying lands all the way to London. By the 1380s, the abbey's farmland was ruined, and the abbess's alternative scheme for making money left London suffering a severe shortage of fish.
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