More information : The fourth of four ships carrying 1000 tons of brine, which were wrecked in Mount's Bay. (1)(2)
Four ships carrying nearly 1,000 tuns of wine were wrecked in Mount's Bay, December 1480. (3)
'Feb. 27, Westminster. Commission to Thomas Seyntleger, knight, Henry Bodengan, knight, Robert Willoughby, knight, Thomas Lucombe, esquire, Michael Petit, Vivian Ferrers and John Pellyn to enquire into the complaint of Robert Hardyng, merchant, that whereas a ship of his called LE TRINITE of Tynby laden with divers goods and merchandise, viz. 130 tuns of ‘osey’ and ‘campelyte’, and 5 tuns of wax, sugar and oil to the value of 1,800 marks and three other ships, two called LE MAGDALEN and MARTYNET, late of Harflewe, laden with 818 tuns of wine of Rochelle and 12 tuns of iron and linen cloth and other merchandise to the value of 1,200 marks, of which Ralph Norman, Liger de Shotell, John de Hamell and Simon Raynold, Frenchmen, were owners, and the third called LE KATERYN laden with 57 tuns of ‘osey’ and ‘campelyte’ of which Adrian Barbour of Brittany was owner, on 9 December last were driven ashore and wrecked at Mountesbay in Coverislake Rode within the county of Cornwall and a great part of the goods, merchandise, ships, gear and habiliments of war came ashore and into the hands of the people of the country there, the merchants all came alive to land so that there was no wreck and he has bought the said goods, merchandise, ships, gear and habiliments, and to cause restitution to be made, after reasonable salvage.' (4)
The vessel's cargo is consistent with a departure from the Iberian Peninsula. Hakluyt, writing some 75 years later, juxtaposes osey and wax as cargoes from Portugal:
"The Marchandy also of Portugal
By diuers lands turne into sale.
Portugalers with vs haue troth in hand:
Whose Marchandy commeth much into England.
They ben our friends, with their commodities,
And wee English passen into their countrees.
Her land hath wine, Osey, Waxe, and Graine..." (5)
Owner: Adrian Barbour (4)
Date of Loss Qualifier: Actual date of loss
Additional references cited in the NMM Medieval Shipwreck Index:
English Trade in the Middle Ages, L Saleman, 1931, p.251 |