around the Baltic during the winter and the Catholic Church demanded fasting (from meat), in Christ's following, in connection with Lent. Due to the large production and the great demand, the Scania Market became the most important North European market in the 14th century. During the fishing season, the necessary salt and barrels for conservation came from Hanseatic Lüneburg and were provided by Hanseatic traders mainly from Lübeck. Lübeck also, to some extent, provided the Scanians with an additional work force, so called "gill-women" who cleaned the fish, ensuring a swift salting of the landed fish. Danish taxation The fishing trade was closely regulated by the Danish crown, with special rules regarding issues such as the fishing nets' mesh size, enforced by special bailiffs who policed the trade. Royal governors were installed in castles at Skanør and Falsterbo to collect customs and act as judicial and administrative leaders. Apart from the fishermen and the local fish traders, merchants from Lübeck and other Hanseatic towns, as well as from England, Scotland, Flanders, and Normandy, came to the herring market to buy and sell herring, but also to trade in other goods with the Scandinavian merchants, landowners and peasants. Traders arrived from Denmark, eastern Norway and Sweden, as well as the rest of the Baltic. A wide variety of goods were traded, among them horses, butter, iron, tar, grain, and handicraft products from the North, Prussia, and Livonia. The fishing and the Scania Market yielded a large income to the Danish Crown, and made together with the Sound Toll the state virtually independent of tax incomes for extended periods of time. A good fishing year in the 14th century could mean an export of 300,000 barrels of herring; and it is estimated that one third of the Danish king's income came from the Scania Market. Strife between Denmark and the Hanseatic League Most of the 14th century was characterized by strife and wars between Danish kings and the Hansa. According to a German view, the Danes got herring "for nothing from God"—only to sell it dearly. As opposed to Stockholm and Bergen, which had Scandinavia's largest Hanseatic colonies, the Danish towns of the Scania Market did not encourage large permanent settlements of Hansa merchants; most of the merchants arrived in the summer and went back home after the end of the market. In 1367, the Hansa towns allied themselves with Sweden, Mecklenburg,