More information : Carried 174 tuns of white wine belonging to the Duchy of Aquitaine, Regimus de Depe, owner. Ship lost on the Sunday after Easter, with many survivors. Many casks of wine removed from the beach by local men. Complaint by the merchants, viz Elie Byger, Frederick Campanare and Bernard Columers, all of Gascony, resulted in the case being the first heard at Southampton on 8-JUN-1313. It was claimed that 154 tuns had reached the Isle of Wight beaches, of which much was stolen, the loss to the merchants being £1,000. There was also some action taken concerning the wreck and Sir Goditon and the pepper-box lighthouse on the Isle of Wight. Quarr Abbey account names the ship as the BLESSED MARY. (1)
A ballad reads: '...she carried in her hold a delicious wine... white wine it was, the finest, and what's more, there were one hundred tuns and seventy four. Now soon, as water crashed upon her deck, the brave ST MARY was a total wreck.' (Ballads of the Isle of Wight) (1)
In 1313 occurred the most famous of the island's medieval wrecks, the ST MARY of Bayonne. The ship of the BLESSED MARY was sailing from Bayonne in Gascony with a cargo of 147 barrels of white wine from the Duchy of Aquitaine. She was bound for Picardy, where the wine would be delivered to the monastery of Livers. However, the MARY was blown off course, far to the north, and on the 22-APR-1313 she was driven ashore in Chale Bay, in the remote and wild wastes of the 'Back of Wight'. (2)
On the Sunday after Easter 1313, which was 22nd April, a wreck occurred under Chale. It was a ship from Bayonne, called the ship of BLESSED MARY, which had been loaded at Tonnay, on the Charente in Aquitaine, with a cargo of 174 barrels of white wine. There were many survivors, but most of the casks of wine were removed from beaches by local men. As the owners Elie Byger, Frederick Campanare and Bernard Columers were from Gascony, the King wished justice to be done to the complaint, especially as they were his subjects at that date. The case was first heard at Southampton 8th June 1313, then Winchester 20th July 1313 and finally restitution and damages were finally settled at the court held on Wednesday in the first week of Lent, 22nd February 1314. (3)
Walter de Goditon and his cronies, when standing before a jury in Southampton on 8th June 1313, had audaciously removed some 57 casks of white wine from the SAINTE MARIE after she had been wrecked in Chale Bay. (4)
'1313. June 8, Westminster. The like to Thomas de Warblinton, John de Grimestede and John le Flemyng, on complaint by Elias Biger, Frederick Campanare and Bernard de Columers, merchants of the duchy [of Aquitaine], who had laden a ship, the ST MARY of Bayonne, with 174 tuns of white wine at Tonnay, upon the River Charrante, in Poitou, for export to England, and whose ship was wrecked on the Isle of Wyght, and the wine was cast ashore at divers places in the island, that divers men of the county of Southampton seized and carried away the wine, although it was not wreck of sea, as many of the mariners of the ship had escaped alive to the land. Witness: J Bishop of Bath and Wells. By the Bishop of Worcester.' (5)
'1313. July 24. Westminster. Association of John Randolf with Thomas de Warblinton, John de Grymstede, and John le Flemyng in a commission of oyer and terminer issued touching a complaint by Elias Biger, Frederick Campanare, and Bernard de Columers, merchants of the duchy [of Aquitaine]. They had freighted a ship called the ST MARY of Bayonne with 174 tuns of white wine at the town of Tormay [sic] on the river Charrante in Poitou for conveyance to England, and on the voyage the ship was driven ashore on the coast of the Isle of Wight, where the wine was seized as wreck of sea by divers men of the county of Southampton, notwithstanding that many of the mariners escaped alive to land.' (6)
'1314, May 26, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The like [commission of oyer and terminer] to Master John de Everesdon and John de Westecote, on complaint by John Besecu that, whereas a ship of Remigius de Depe, merchant of Bayonne, freighted with white wines in the duchy [of Aquitaine] to be carried to the ports fo Flanders by the said Remigius de Depe and his men, was driven ashore by tempest near Chale in the Isle of Wight and wrecked, by which a great part of the wine was endangered, and the said Remigius de Depe proved that the ship and wines were his, and afterwards obtained that proof and made his profit therein, Robert de Harslade, John le Walshe and Reymund Arnald having made a plot to injure him, and conspired with certain others at Newport in the same island that Elias Byger, Fretheric de Campane and Bernard de Columiners, unknown men, should lay claim to the ship and wines, and that the said John Besecu should be indicted of having committed a theft of these wines from them, as if those wines had been their property when they were not, and as if Remigius de Depe had not proved that the ship and wines were his, procured his capture and detention for a long time in prison at Winchester until according to the law and custom of the realm he was acquitte: the justices are to enquire fully into these allegations by oath of good men of the county of Southampton. By fine of 40s.' (7)
NB: There is a record for a French cargo vessel which was reported in the Privy Council Papers in 1314 as stranded in Chale Bay, en route from Bayonne to Flanders with wine. Enough of the details are consistent with the ST MARY to suspect that this may be an alternative account of the same vessel, particularly as wrecks tend to turn up in State Papers several months or even years after the initial incident, and this would appear to sound close to the account in source (6). Alternatively, there may be two wrecks in question, the ST MARY, which was definitively bound for England, according to source (5), and the other vessel bound for Flanders. Byger, Campan[ar]e and Colum[in]ers appear to have been involved in the former, (5) and appear as fraudulent claimants in the latter (7). It is therefore possible that these may be one and the same wreck, but it is also possible that if they had not obtained restitution for their wreck, they instead claimed a stake in another wreck nearby. (8)
Ship owner: Regimus de Depe (1); Remigius de Depe (7)
Cargo owners: Elie Byger or Elias Biger, Frederick Campanare, Bernard Columers, Gascony (1)(3)(5)(6), these appear spelt Elias Byger, Fretheric de Campane and Bernard de Columiners, as fraudulent claimants in (7); Remigius de Depe, rightful claimant (7)
Date of Loss Qualifier: Actual date of loss
Additional sources cited in Shipwreck Index of the British Isles:
Quarr Abbey Wreck, V; Driving Tour of the Isle of Wight; Back of Wight, p5; N.CRO TPT/75; PRP.C47/60/1 [Privy Council records?]; Ballads of the Wight, J R Brummell, The Wreck of the St Mary |