The Financiers of John Cabot

The Matthew of Bristol and the Financiers of John Cabot's 1497 Voyage to North AmericaAuthor(s): Evan JonesSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 121, No. 492 (Jun., 2006), pp. 778-795Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3806359 .

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English Historical Review Vol. CXXI No. 492 doi:l 0.1093/ehr/cel 106 ? The Aurhor [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

The Matthew of Bristol and the Financiers ofjohn Cabot's 14P7 Voyage to North America*

The Matthew of Bristol is one of England's best known historic ships. For over 200 years, the Matthew has been ensconced in the popular imagination as the vessel in which John Cabot sailed on his 1497 voyage of discovery to North America. Since the construction ofa 'replica' of the Matthew for the quincentenial celebrations of 1997, the ship's fame has increased, with almost a miilion people visiting the Matthew and

many more watching television programmes about her. In both Britain and North America, the discovery voyages of this period continue to attract considerable interest, with publications appearing, on a regular basis, on the history of Atlantic exploration.1 A problem with existing accounts of the 1497 voyage, however, is that they provide little information about the Matthew, the marine she came from, or the Bristol men who financed the expedition. The lack of such an economic context has allowed the expedition to be divorced in historical

interpretations from the commerciai world from which the ship and

voyage sprang. This has encouraged the perpetuation of a somewhat romantic account ofthe voyage, which focuses heavily on the leadership of the expedition and the location of the American landfall.2 In these accounts Cabot is typically east in the role of a lone pioneer, who was financed by Bristol's merchants but remained independent of them. The Matthew is generally portrayed as a discovery vessel, specially built for the expedition. This article will challenge these representations of the voyage and demonstrate the extent to which the expedition was rooted in Bristol commerce. This will be done by reconstructing the

history of the Matthew and resituating the ship in her local maritime

economy. In addition, the article will examine John Cabot's relationship with his Bristol backers. By investigating these matters, it will be possible to throw light on why Bristol's Atlantic expeditions were initiated and how they were prosecuted.

The first published claim that Cabot's ship was called the Matthew, was made in 1789 by the Bristol historian, William Barrett. In his history of Bristol, he noted that 'In the year 1497, 24th June on St. John's day, as it is in a manuscript in my possession, "was Newfoundland found by

* For their comments on earlier versions of this article, I would like to thank Gwen Seabourne, James Lee, Peter Pope, Sarah Rose and Wendy Childs.

i. A. Agnarsdottir (ed.), Voyages and Explorations in the North Atlantic from the Middle Ages to theXVIIth Century (Reykjavik, 2000); P. T. Bradley, British Maritime Enterprise in the New World (Lampeter, 1999); J. R. Enterline, Erikson, Eskimos, and Columbus: Medieval European Knowledge of America (Baltimore, 2002). See also the publications of The Hakluyt Society and the journal Terrae Incognitae.

2. P. E. Pope, The Many Landfalls ofjohn Cabot (Toronto, 1997).

EHR, cxxi. 492 (June 2006)



JOHN CABOT'S 1497 VOYAGE TO NORTH AMERICA 779

Bristol men in a ship called the Matthew"'.3 Barrett's claim was later

supported by the publication of an extract from a document that is known today as the 'Fust MS'. This chronicle, purporting to be written in 1565, stated that in Bristol's mayoral year of 1496/7:

This year, on St. John the Baptist's Day, the land of America was found by the Merchants of Bristow in a shippe of Bristowe, called the Mathew, the which said ship departed from the port of Bristowe, the second day of May, and came home again the 6th of August next following.4

Following the destruction ofthe Fust MS by fire in 1860, some concerns were raised about its authenticity.5 In particular, Henry Harrisse, a

discovery historian of the late nineteenth century, threw doubt on the name of Cabot's ship by suggesting that both the Fust MS and the

manuscript Barrett claimed to possess were fabrications ofthe eighteenth- century forger and poet, Thomas Chatterton.6 The main weakness with Harrisse's supposition, as the historian himself was later to acknowledge, was that the Fust ms contained information unavailable to an eighteenth- century forger.7 It therefore seems likely that the Fust ms was a genuine sixteenth-century chronicle. William Barrett's claim has meanwhile been vindicated by the discovery of an entry in an early-seventeenth-century chronicle, which contains the quotation he referred to.8

If the name of Cabot's ship is one thing that can be ascertained with reasonable certainty, her size is another. Until the 1950s, all that could be inferred about the ship was contained in a reference in an Italian letter of December 1497, which stated that Cabot had made his voyage 'with a small ship (piccolo navilio) and eighteen persons'.9 The actual size of the ship became much more definitively established with the

discovery, in 1956, ofthe 'John Day Letter'. This document was written in the winter of 1497-8 by the Bristol merchant John Day, alias Hugh Say, to the 'Grand Admiral' of Spain: Christopher Columbus.10 While

3. W. Barrett, The History and Antiquities ofthe City of Bristol (Bristol, 1789), 172. 4. G. E. Weare, Cabot's Discovery of North America (London, 1897), 116. 5. The fire took place on 14 Feb. at the shop of Thomas Kerslake: 'Destructive fire in Park-

Street', The Bristol Times and Felix Farley s Journal, 18 Feb. 1860, 7. 6. H. Harrisse, 'John Cabot and the Matthew', Notes & Queries, 8th Ser., xi (1897), 501-2. 7. The manuscript's revelations that the voyage took three months and that Cabot had returned

before 10 August were not known until the 1830s: R. Brown, Ragguagli sulla vita e sulle opere di Marin Sanuto, part I (Venice, 1837), 99-100; S. Bentley (ed.), Excerpta Historica or Illustrations of English History (London, 1831), 113; H. Harrisse, 'John Cabot and the Matthew (8th S. xi. 501; xii, 49.)', Notes & Queries, 8th Ser., xi (1897), 130.

8. 'A Summary or pettie Chronicle ... written in Bristoll by William Addames in anno 1625', Bristol Record Office 13748(4). This chronicle became available to the public only in 1959, when it was removed from the Red Lodge in Bristol and deposited at the Bristol Record Office. The reference to the Matthew was first noted by D. B. Quinn, 'John Cabot's Matthew', Times Literary Supplement, 8 June 1967, 517.

9. Caiendar of State Papers, Milan, I, no. 552. 10. L.-A. Vigneras, 'The Cape Breton Landfall: 1494 or 1497? Note on a letter from John Day',

Canadian Historical Review, xxxviii (1957), 219-28; A. A. Ruddock, 'John Day of Bristol and the English voyages across the Atlantic before 1497', Geographical Journal, cxxxii (1966), 225-30.




780 THE MATTHEWOF BRISTOL AND THE FINANCIERS OF

John Day's account does not say much about the ship, he does state of Cabot that 'in his voyage he had only one ship of fifty "toneles" and

twenty men and food for seven or eight months'. For a 50-ton ship to have a crew of twenty would have been regarded as excessive for an

ordinary European venture, where ships more normally carried about one crew member for every 4-5 tons of capacity.11 The 1497 voyage was, however, no ordinary voyage and it is unsurprising that, apart from the

supernumeraries who are known to have accompanied the expedition, extra crew might have been considered necessary.

Apart from the information about the ship's name and size, little more can be said about the Matthew with any certainty. Since she does not appear in the customs accounts of 1492/3, it seems likely that she was a fairly new ship, although it is possible that she was either an older Bristol ship that had been renamed or that she was a foreign ship that had been bought second hand. There is no reason, however, for believing that she was some sort of specially built discovery vessel, as has often been supposed.12 Indeed, since none ofthe other ships Bristol sent out on voyages of discovery between 1480 and 1505 appear to have been

purpose built for their expeditions, it is highly probable that the

Matthew, like the other ships, was an ordinary Bristol merchantman, chartered for the voyage from the Bristol marine.13 During the late fifteenth to sixteenth centuries Bristol generally had about twenty to

twenty five vessels, about half of which would have been greater than

50 tons burden. There would thus have been no shortage of shipping available for Cabot's Bristol backers to choose from. That the ship was not purpose built is further supported by the lack of time that was available for such a construction to take place. Cabot did not receive a

ii. Fifty Viscayan tonels were equivalent to fifty English 'tons burden': F. C. Lane, 'Tonnages, Medieval and Modern', Economic History Review, xvii (1964), 226, 228. Both fifteenth-century commerciai accounts and Elizabethan estimates indicate that merchantmen rarely had more than one crew member per 4 tons of capacity: A. Hanham, The Celys and their World (Cambridge, 1985), 361-97; W. Salisbury, 'Early tonnage measurement in England', Mariner's Mirror, Iii (1966), 46.

12. P. Firstbrook, The Voyage ofthe Matthew (London, 1997), 113; S. Martin and C. Sanger, Matthew: A Voyage from the Past into the Future (St Ives, 1996), 12; A. F. Williams, John Cabot and Newfoundland (Newfoundland, 1996), 21.

13. The name ofthe 80-ton ship used in the 1480 voyage is unknown but the ships employed in 1481 were called the George and the Trinity. These Bristol ships appear in the customs account of 1479/80, engaged in regular trade: E. M. Carus-Wilson, The Overseas Trade of Bristol (1937), 218? 89. The ships employed on the 1504 expedition were the Gabriel and the Jesus: A. A. Ruddock, 'The Reputation of Sebastian Cabot', Bulletin ofthe Institute of Historical Research, xiii (1974), 97-8. Both of these appear to have been engaged in Bristol's regular trade to Andalusia and Bordeaux over the winter of 1503-4: see Table 1. The Jesus is also recorded as trading to Bordeaux in 1505 and 1510: Jean Vanes (ed.), Documents Illustrating the Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century, Bristol Record Society Publications, XXXI (1979), 102; T[he ]N[ational ]A[rchives] (formerly the Public Record Office), E122 85/11. The 95-ton Michael of Bristol, which was employed in at least one voyage to North America before 1506, was also engaged in the town's regular trade to Andalusia and La Rochelle: see Table 1; J. A. Williamson, The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VII, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, CXX (Cambridge, 1962), 262-3; Vanes, Overseas Trade, 133-4.





royal licence for his expedition till 5 March 1496 and the 'John Day' letter states that he made an abortive voyage later that year. Whether the Matthew was used for the 1496 voyage is unknown but it is clear that it would not have been possible to build and outfit an entirely new ship in the few short months between March and what was, presumably, a summer voyage. Similarly, it would have been difficult for a new ship to be built and outfitted, even if one had been desired, between Cabot's return from his unsuccessful voyage in 1496 and his departure on the Matthew in May 1497. It therefore seems almost certain that the Matthew was an ordinary commercial ship, chartered for the expedition.

Turning from what is known about the Matthew, to what can be surmised about Cabot's backers, it is at first worth noting that, although it has always been acknowledged that Bristol men financed the 1497

voyage and supplied Cabot with a ship and crew, little has ever been written about his supporters. One reason for this is that, while John Cabot's contribution to the voyage is relatively well documented, his Bristol backers are shadowy figures, unnamed in the surviving sources.14 There is, nevertheless, at least one document that does throw light on what Bristol stood to gain from the 1497 expedition. This document is the 'letters patent', or licence, granted by Henry VII to John Cabot in 1496. Most of this licence is devoted to Cabot's rights, duties and

obligations for the projected voyage of discovery. It was important that these rights and duties be tightly defined, since they would apply, in

perpetuity, to anyone operating under the terms of the letters patent. The licence states that Cabot, his heirs and deputies could hold, in the

king's name, any land they could take possession of, and that they would have a monopoly over any trade that was opened up as a result of their voyage.

In interpreting Cabot's licence it is important to understand that it did not commit the king, or any other party, to funding or supporting the voyage in any way. This meant that, since Cabot was a poor man, his position on receiving the licence was that of an entrepreneur, holding a patent, in need of venture capital. Although no information has survived about how Cabot persuaded his Bristol backers to finance the

voyage, it is possible to surmise how he proposed to pay them. Lacking any money or collateral of his own, Cabot must, like so many entre?

preneurs, have secured the support of his financiers by mortgaging his future. In Cabot's case, such a mortgage could have taken the form ofa deed or charter in which he assigned a share ofhis rights to his financiers.

By doing this, Cabot would not have been doing anything particularly novel, since rights granted through letters patent were often, not only assigned, but treated as negotiable assets. The Crown, for instance,

frequently granted licences to export 'prohibited' wares, such as grain,

14- While the Bristol merchants Robert Thorne and Hugh Elyot may have been involved in the expedition, the evidence for this is inconclusive. Williamson, Cabot Voyages, 62.





by means of letters patent. These were granted by the Crown in the full

expectation that the licences would be assigned to third parties. The merchants who bought such licences were similarly free to use the licences themselves, break them up or trade them.15

That there would have been no objection to John Cabot assigning the rights he had been granted is further supported by what happened in the case of two later expedition licences. These are the 1501 and 1502 letters patent, which were also granted by Henry VII to Bristol-based

explorers. Both of these licences specifically mention 'assigns', while the

1502 licence goes further by stipulating that the named licence holders, 'or their heirs and assigns', were bound to pay each 'according to the amount of his share' the costs incurred in outfitting the group's voyages.16 By stating this, the 1502 licence effectively created a

government-backed joint stock partnership, which operated from

Bristol, until c.1505, under the name of 'The company adventurers to the new found land'. It seems, moreover, that some ofthe rights granted to the 1502 patent holders were, in fact, assigned to third parties. This is

apparent from the fact that at least one ofthe major merchants involved in this company, William Clerk of London, was not mentioned in the

original 1502 licence.17 As with negotiations between modern entrepreneurs and venture

capitalists, the actual terms of the agreement Cabot reached with his backers must have depended on the strength of their respective nego? tiating positions. While it is difficult to be sure about how strong Cabot's

position really was, on the basis of the available information, it does not appear to have been good. Cabot was a Venetian citizen, without

family connections in England, who had little to contribute by way of

money or collateral. He did not have a track record of successful ex?

ploration and there is no evidence that anyone else was competing for his services.18 Moreover, since the king's patent stated that all future trade that might result from Cabot's discoveries would have to pass through Bristol, it would have been difficult for Cabot to raise money for his initial expeditions outside Bristol. This would have restricted his pool of potential financiers to a small group of close-knit Bristol merchants who dominated Bristol's trade and had long dominated its

politics. If this group had united, as they so often did in the face of

outsiders, they could have driven a very hard bargain. In short, on the basis of existing information, it seems likely that, to obtain financial

support, Cabot would have had to assign a major share ofhis rights to his Bristol backers. Like many modern patent holders, Cabot may well have been left a minor stakeholder in his own enterprise.

15- J. Vanes (ed.), The Ledger of John Smythe 1538-1550 (London, 1974), 108, 174-5, 256-7, 307. 16. Williamson, Cabot Voyages, 258-9. 17. Ibid., 262-3. 18. Ibid., 33-53, 209.





Apart from providing clues about the probable nature of the

relationship between Cabot and his financiers, the licence also provides evidence about who else was likely to gain from the expeditions. If the individual financiers ofthe voyages had a lot to achieve from a successful

outcome, Bristol as a whole might have profited even more. From the

point of view ofthe town, the crucial clause in the letters patent was the statement that Cabot and his heirs and deputies 'shall be bounden and under obligation for every their voyage, as often as they shall arrive at our port of Bristol, at which they are bound and holden only to arrive'.19 In other words, if Cabot, or anyone he assigned his rights to, were to have a monopoly over any territories discovered, anyone operating under the terms of Cabot's licence would have to trade through Bristol. From the point of view of Cabot's supporters, the inclusion of this clause ensured three things. First, as noted above, the clause limited the extent to which Cabot was likely to receive funding from outside Bristol.

Second, it would have meant that if Cabot and his backers fell out, his financiers could have put pressure on Cabot through Bristol's courts, where the port's rich merchants exerted a considerable influence. Third, the requirement to trade through Bristol would have meant that, even if Cabot was able to renege on any obligations to his financiers, these men would still have benefited indirectly from his success. This is

because, if Cabot's voyage were successful, Bristol would become the

gateway for all trade to the new territories. In effect, Bristol would have achieved in 1496 what Seville accomplished in 1503, when that Andalusian city was granted a monopoly over all commerce between

Spain and its American colonies. The people who would have benefited most from Bristol's monopoly would have been the town's merchant

oligarchy, who controlled the municipal government, most ofthe port's trade and much of its property. Cabot's financiers thus stood to gain twice, first from the profits ofthe voyages and secondly from the growth ofa commercial centre in which they had broad and deep investments.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the city of Seville, on the

strength of its monopoly over the Americas' trade, became the greatest city in Spain and one ofthe richest cities of Christendom. If John Cabot had discovered rich territories, or a lucrative new trade route, a similar lot could have fallen to Bristol. John Cabot might have become in-

dividually wealthy, but his financiers and the town of Bristol are likely to have gained much more. In this context, it is perhaps understandable

why the Bristol chroniclers of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries stated that in 1497 it was 'men of Bristol' who discovered the New World. From the point of view ofhis Bristol backers, Cabot may never have seemed to be more than the instrument of their ambitions.

If it is accepted that the Matthew of Bristol was an ordinary merchantman, like the other Bristol ships employed in the port's

19- Ibid., 205.




784 THE MATTHEW OV BRISTOL AND THE FINANCIERS OF

voyages of discovery, the next issue that can be addressed is the part she would have played in the town's marine. It is possible to answer this by examining the nature of Bristol's shipping industry at this time and by considering the type of trade a 50-ton ship would have serviced.

Bristol's sixteenth-century shipping industry has been the subject of

just one major study. This revealed that in the early 1540s the entire Bristol marine consisted of twenty to twenty-five vessels, ranging in size from 250 tons burden, to less than 15 tons.20 These ships could be

roughly divided into three groups. About half the ships were of 60 tons or more, with most, in this group, being of 90-135 tons burden. These

ships specialised in the continental trade, providing the bulk of shipping services between Bristol and the ports of Biscay, Portugal and Andalusia. At the other end of the scale were a group of ships of less than 25 tons burden. These serviced, almost exclusively, the trade between Bristol and southeast Ireland. There were about five ships, i.e. about one

quarter ofthe marine, in this group. Between the specialised continental traders and the specialised Irish traders lay a group of ships of 30-50 tons burden that served both the Irish trade and the continental trade.

Nevertheless, while it appears to have been economic to run these ships in both markets, they were, for tax reasons, not well suited to the wine

trade, which accounted for half the tonnage shipped to Bristol from the Continent.21 When engaged in the continental trade, ships like the Matthew thus spent most of their time engaged in the non-wine trades,

bringing iron from the Basque country, woad and salt from Bordeaux, and oil, soap and fruit from Andalusia.

While the data relating to the size of vessels and the trades they served are based on evidence of the Bristol industry of the 1540s, a similar

pattern can be discerned by examining the available evidence for 1513 and that for the year 1503/4. The 1513 survey of shipping reveals that, on the 14 January that year, there were eighteen Bristol ships in port.22 Although some of the town's ships may have been abroad at this time, the survey probably includes most of the Bristol marine. Twelve of the ships in the survey were of 60 tons or greater and are thus likely to have been engaged, almost exclusively, in the continental trade. The six remaining ships were lesser vessels; their exact size not being listed in the survey, since they were considered too small to serve in the navy during Henry VIII's ongoing war with France (1512-14).

20. E. T. Jones, 'The Bristol Shipping Industry in the Sixteenth Century' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh, 1998), 19, 183-267.

21. Small ships were fiscally disadvantaged because any ship carrying more than twenty tuns of wine had to sacrifice two tuns to the Crown as 'prise'. The compensation that shipowners had to pay to the merchants for this loss came to about ?10. This amounted to half the gross freight receipts obtainable from a 20-ton ship but only a tenth of the receipts from a 100-ton ship, Jones, 'Bristol Shipping', 22, 60.

22. Appendix II.





Moving to the evidence from the 1503/4 customs account, it must first be noted that this document can give only a rough idea of the

tonnage of the Bristol ships. Given that the customs accounts of this

period do not list the size of ships, if additional information is un-

available, it is only possible to determine the tonnage of a vessel from the cargo it carried. In reality, of course, many of the ships listed in Table 1 would have been considerably larger than is apparent from their known ladings. This is clear from the figures in brackets, which show the tonnage of listed ships where this is known from other sources.23

Despite the limitation of the customs evidence, the evidence from the 1503/4 account is valuable, both because it was compiled just six

years after the 1497 voyage and because it almost certainly includes every Bristol ship that was in service in 1503/4. Indeed, the account even includes two ships, the Jesus and the Gabriel, that took part in an

expedition to North America during the summer of 1504 and another

ship, the Michael, which sailed to America around this time.24 Table 1 includes all those ships that were listed as Bristol ships in the customs

account, as well as four ships that can be shown to be Bristol ships from other sources.25

This table indicates that the Bristol marine of 1503/4 was of a similar size and structure to the marine of 1513 and that of the 1540s. In 1503/4 there were twenty-three ships in Bristol's marine. These have been ranked in the table according to their known tonnage, maximum tons

carried, ship type and destinations. The largest ships were engaged primarily in the long-distance voyages to North America, Iberia and

Biscay. The smallest ships rarely strayed further than Ireland or Brittany. The ship Cabot hired, as a 50-ton vessel, can be securely placed in the

23. The tonnage ofthe Gabrielis recorded in a royal grant of 1502, that of the Jesus in a purchase agreement of 1503: Williamson, Cabot Voyages, 247; infra, n. 24. The tonnage of the Julian Bonaventure and the Michael are recorded in Chancery depositions of 1500 and 1506: Vanes, Overseas Trade, 133-4,149.

24. For a discussion of the 1504 voyage, see Ruddock, 'The Reputation of Sebastian Cabot', 97-8. The 120-ton Gabriel 0$ Bristol entered Bristol on 16 Jan. 1504 from Andalusia, carrying 103 tons of wine and oil. The Jesus is almost certainly the fhesus Bonaventur that entered from Bordeaux on 16 Jan. 1504, carrying 136 tons of wine and woad belonging to Bristol merchants: TNA, E122 199/1. This ship was purchased on 11 May 1503 from Martin de Reparase, a shipbroker, or shipwright, from St Jean de Luz. At the time of purchase the ship was described as the Bonaventure of 130 tons: Vanes, Overseas Trade, 99. In records from 1505 and 1510 this ship is referred to simply as the Jesus: Vanes, Overseas Trade, 102; TNA, E122 85/11. The lack ofa customs entry for outbound voyages of the Jesus and Gabriel to the New World in 1504 indicates that the ships carried no customable merchandise. This voyage must have taken place later than May, since Richard Saverey, the master ofthe Gabriel, returned to Bristol only on 20 May, after serving as the shipmaster ofthe Christopher of Bristol on a voyage to Bordeaux: TNA, E122199/1. For the voyages ofthe Michael, see Williamson, Cabot Voyages, 262-3; Vanes, Overseas Trade, 133-4.

25. The Bristol customs accounts usually list a ship's port of origin. This is, however, frequently omitted if the name has two words in it. The Jesus Bonaventure is identified in other sources as the Jesus of Bristol: supra, n. 24. The Mary Tower is identified as a Bristol ship from 1511 Butlerage account: TNA, E101 85/11. The Mary Beloux (Belhous) of Bristol is mentioned in a French account of 1496; the Julian (Gelian) Bonaventure of Bristol in a Bordeaux record of 1503: Vanes, Overseas Trade, 92, 97.




786 THE MATTHEWOV BRISTOL AND THE FINANCIERS OF

Table i: Bristol ships in the 1503/4 customs account

Note: Ship names are given here as they appear in the customs account.

middling category of ships, which spent most of their time serving the trades to Ireland, Biscay and Spain. While these ships were sometimes used in the wine trade, they were fiscally disadvantaged in this important business. During political crises, ships like the Matthew would have been considered too small for naval service, although they could be employed as privateers. For most of their existence, however, this class of ship would have been employed in peaceful commercial service carrying goods between Bristol, Ireland and Biscay. That this was also the case with the Matthew can be further supported by examining the evidence

relating to her employment in the years after the 1497 voyage. As mentioned earlier, the 1492/3 customs account, which is the latest

surviving Bristol account from the pre-1497 era, contains no references





to a Matthew of Bristol. This suggests that the ship was built, bought, or at least renamed, between October 1493 and April 1497. Although her construction could have taken place in Bristol, it is just as likely that she was built elsewhere, for the market for ships was an international one and Bristol merchants were not averse to buying their vessels abroad. For instance, the Gabriel and the Jesus of Bristol, which were used in the

1504 expedition, were both French built.26 Although no records have been found that concern the Matthews pre-1497 voyages, some do exist for the post-1497 period.

While no evidence has emerged about how the Matthew was employed between September 1497 and December 1503, there is no reason for

supposing that she would have been used for any of Bristol's later

voyages to North America. Indeed, given her small size, she would

probably have been considered unsuitable for ventures geared towards

opening up a long-distance trade route. It is certainly the case that all three ofthe Bristol ships employed in the expeditions from 1502 to 1505 were much larger than the Matthew. These were the Michael (95 tons), the Gabriel (120 tons) and the Jesus (130 tons). It therefore seems likely that, following the 1497 voyage, the Matthew would have returned to

ordinary commerciai employment. The first firm information as to the Matthews post-1497 employment

comes from the 1503/4 customs account, which contains five entries that concern the voyages of the 'Mathewe of Bristol.27 While it is just possible that this was a different ship from the one Cabot employed, there are two reasons why this is unlikely. First, 'Matthew' appears to have been an unusual name for a fifteenth-century Bristol ship. Indeed,

among the thousands of references to ships found in the sixteen surviving Bristol customs accounts of the later fifteenth century, there are no

ships called Matthew^ belonging either to Bristol or to any other port.28 The probability of there being two ships at this time called the 'Matthew of Bristol' is thus low. Second, and perhaps more significantly, the

1503/4 Mathewe of Bristol was ofthe right size, and was involved in the

right sort of trade, to have been the 50-ton ship that Cabot employed in

1497. It is certainly the case that she was of greater than 34 tons burden

and, since she was employed in the Irish trade, she was almost certainly less than 60 tons burden.

The 1503/4 account reveals that the Matthew of Bristol sailed for Ireland in December 1503 carrying a mixed cargo of English manufactured goods, including woollen cloth, and re-exports, such as silk and wine. This was a

fairly typical consignment for a ship engaged in the Bristol?Ireland trade. On her return from Ireland in May 1504 she was laded with salt fish

26. Williamson, Cabot Voyages, 247; supra, n. 24. 27. Appendix I. 28. TNA, E122/19/1; 19/3; 19/4; 19/6; 19/7; 19/8; 19/10; 19/10A; 19/11; 18/39; 19/13; 161/31; 19/14;

20/5; 20/7; 20/9.





and animal skins: again typical products of the Irish trade.29 In June, the Matthew was dispatched to Bordeaux, carrying woollen cloth

belonging to Bristol merchants. She returned in August with woad and

salt, before making a quick turnaround, to depart a fortnight later for her final recorded voyage of the accounting year. The customs account states that her destination was 'Hispania', which usually refers to the

Basque ports of northern Spain. On this occasion the Matthew was laded with a valuable consignment of cloth belonging to a wide variety of Bristol merchants. On her return the ship would probably have carried a cargo of Spanish iron from San Sebastian, Renteria or Passajes.30

Apart from the details ofthe goods shipped, the 1503/4 customs account reveals the names of the shipmasters who skippered the Matthew that

year. On her voyage to Ireland her master was Edmund Griffeths. On her

subsequent voyages to France and Spain her skipper was William Claron. Neither of these individuals can be shown to have had a prior association with the ship. Indeed, Edmund Griffeths is recorded as the master ofthe Frances of Bristol on that vessel's return from Ireland in October 1503 and, after serving as the master of the Matthew between December 1503 and May 1504, Griffeths transferred to the St Mark of Bristol, which he

subsequently took on voyages to Spain and Portugal. William Claron, for his part, was the master of the Julian (Gelian) Bonaventure of Bristol before taking over the Matthew?1 Such a rapid turnover of ship's masters

appears to have been fairly typical of Bristol's marine at this time, with

shipmasters transferring within the marine on a regular basis. There is thus no reason for assuming that either Edmund Griffeths or William Claron had been the master ofthe Matthew on her 1497 voyage.

Following the last appearance of the Matthew in the 1503/4 customs

account, the next document that refers to the ship comes from a Bristol

'Butlerage and Prisage' account of 1510/11. This states that in 1510 'The mathewe William Gla_ne master oame from Burdeux the xxvii day of October received oute of her - ii ton wyn'.32 William Claron was still the master of the ship six months later, when a Bordeaux notary recorded

that, on 29 April 1511, Guihem Chipman (William Shipman of Bristol) and associates freighted woad on the Mathieu of Bristol, under master 'Guilhem Clar'.33 It seems unlikely, however, that the vessel continued in service much longer, for she is not mentioned in the 1513 survey.34 This survey does, however, record the existence of a 120-ton ship called the 'new mathew\ owned by John Shipman, who was one of Bristol's richest merchants and the town's principal shipowner. Since this 'new' Mathew was a 120-ton ship, she could not have been Cabot's vessel. The

29. A. K. Longfield, Anglo-Irish Trade in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1929). 30. W. R. Childs, Anglo-Castilian Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester, 1978), 117. 31. TNA, E122/199/1. 32. TNA, E101 85/11. 33. J. Bernard, Navires et Gens de Mer a Bordeaux (vers 1400 - vers 1550J, (Paris, 1968), iii, 300. 34. Appendix II.





name given to her in this survey does, nevertheless, imply the existence of an 'old' Matthew, which had probably gone out of service fairly recently. Since all later references to the John Shipman's 120-ton Matthew omit the 'new' designation, it seems that it quickly became accepted that

Shipman's vessel was, from 1513 to 1539, Bristol's only 'Matthew ?b On the basis of the available evidence it appears that the Matthew of

Bristol came into service sometime between 1493 and 1496. She probably undertook a number of commerciai voyages before being selected as a suitable vessel for conducting an exploratory Atlantic voyage in 1497.

Although John Day states that she was provisioned for seven or eight months, in the event, her voyage to North America lasted just three months. Once the Matthew had returned to Bristol the ambitions of

John Cabot and his Bristol backers expanded. A substantial landmass had been discovered, which Cabot believed to be part of the oriental lands of which Marco Polo had written and from where the riches ofthe East were known to flow. Cabot now made explicit his intention to establish a long-distance trade to these lands and, to this end, five ships were outfitted at Bristol in 1498. It is unlikely, however, that the Matthew took part in either this voyage, or any of Bristol's later voyages across the Atlantic. In the fifteenth century, as in more recent times, large ships were more cost effective in long-distance trade. The Matthews small size would thus probably have excluded her from the attempts to establish a

long-distance trade to the Orient. It is therefore likely that she returned instead to the European trade that she had been built to serve. It is in such commerciai activities that she was engaged in 1503/4,1510 and 1511. It seems likely that 'Cabot's' Matthew finally went out of service shortly before 1513. How she met her end is unknown. She may have been

wrecked, burnt, or taken by French privateers during 1512, following the start of Henry Vffl's first war with France. It is just as possible, however, that she was simply broken up for timber, as appears to have happened in the case ofthe recently excavated 'Newport Ship'.36

The purpose of this article has been to begin to put the commerciai world of late-medieval Bristol back into the story of Cabot's voyage to North America. John Cabot's choice of Bristol, as has long been

acknowledged, was not a coincidence. Bristol had been involved in Atlantic

exploration since at least 1480 and it was almost certainly this endeavour, whether successful or not, that attracted Cabot to the port in the first place. Existing accounts ofthe 1497 voyage have, nevertheless, paid little attention to the commerciai world from which both Cabot's financiers and the

35- The 'Matthew of Bristol' was taken up for naval service in 1513: LfettersJ & Pfapers, Henry VIII], I, nos 1728, 2217, 2304, 2305. This 120-ton ship can be traced through the later Bristol customs accounts, up to July 1537: E122 21/2; 199/2; 21/4; 21/5; 21/7; 199/3. The last identified reference to this ship comes from a High Court of Admiralty case which states that she had been attacked by Spanish pirates in 1539. Vanes, Overseas Trade, 104.

36. K. Howell, 'The Newport Ship', Current Archaeology, clxxxix (2003), 176-81.





Matthew came. His Bristol backers have been ignored in the literature and in most artistic representations ofthe voyage they are depicted as awestruck

bystanders, graciously sending Cabot off on his heroic voyage. It has been suggested in this article that the rich and powerful Bristol

merchants who financed the 1497 voyage are unlikely to have been awed

by Cabot, or even to have been particularly generous in their treatment of him. While Cabot had his dreams, his merchant backers must have had their own agenda, which presumably revolved around the wealth that could be generated for both themselves and their port if Cabot was successful. To protect their interests Cabot's backers probably ensured that the exploration licence was drawn up in a way that suited them.

Following the granting of the licence it is likely that they required that Cabot assign them a part, possibly the lion's part, of the rights granted to him by the Crown. Until Cabot did this there would have been little incentive for his backers to provide him with the money, ship, victuals and crew he needed for the expedition.

Once Cabot had reached an agreement with his financiers, he would have chosen, or been given, a vessel to use. Although all involved would have recognised the importance of his having a sound and weatherly ship, the main priority of the financiers is likely to have been to save

money by choosing the smallest vessel that could reasonably accomplish the mission. In the end, the chosen vessel proved adequate: a 50-ton

ship, capable of carrying the victuals and equipment needed by twenty men on an eight-month voyage.37 The Matthew of Bristol appears to have been an unexceptional product of the port's marine, built to serve the town's trade to Ireland and Biscay. If there was anything extraordinary about the 1497 voyage it, therefore, lay not in the ship, but in Cabot's skill and the ambition ofhis backers.

Most accounts of the 1497 voyage have treated the expedition as the sole achievement of a lone pioneer. This is not surprising. Those who have written about Cabot have typically wished to portray him as a proto-American hero, a man fit to stand alongside Columbus. To achieve this it helps if Cabot can be depicted as the embodiment ofthe American values of independence and self-reliance - rather than as the instrument ofa group of self-serving English merchants. It seems likely that the assumption that the Matthew was some sort of specially built

discovery vessel is similarly rooted in a desire to separate the ship, as an emblem of the voyage, from Bristol's ordinary shipping industry. By such means is the expedition elevated above the commercial world, to become an event of mythic significance.

This article has attempted to challenge the mythic representation of the 1497 voyage by demonstrating the extent to which the venture was rooted in Bristol commerce. The iconic Matthew was an ordinary

37. L&P, XIX, i, 1544, no. 140(5).





commerciai vessel and Cabot's backers probably regarded themselves as

employers of outside talent, rather than as the recipients ofa great man's

largess. Those interested in the discovery voyages need to recognise that the expeditions did not occur in a political or economic vacuum. Whatever Cabot's personal merits, his voyage took place only because others were willing to gamble on the venture and were convinced that

they would benefit from its success. For 400 years historians of Bristol's exploration voyages have

concentrated on the achievements of the expeditions; achievement

being defined largely in terms of whether a given European was the first to set foot on a particular section of the American shore. While the

discovery of new documents may yet throw additional light on such

matters, in the absence of such finds, genuine advances are unlikely. Shifting attention on to the economic and political context of the

voyages could reveal much more about why they took place and how

they were prosecuted. This article has suggested, in two ways, that an

engagement with Bristol's late-medieval world can throw light on

England's first attempts to reach out across the Atlantic. For those interested in the early European attempts to explore, exploit and colonise North America, the investigation of how and why Bristol's

voyages took place could well prove more fruitful than continued

attempts to identify the location of Cabot's American landfall.

University of Bristol EVANJONES

Appendix I

Bristol Customs Accounts: 1503/438

fo. I2V

A small ship called the Mathewe of Bristol, in which Edmund Griffeth is master, exited towards Ireland the same day [20 December] and the same [ship] has in her:

Hugh Eliet 6 tons corrupt wine, subsidy 95. value ?9

Idem 12 lb. worked silk, value ?8 subsidy 85. Idem 3 tons salt, value, value 505. subsidy is. 6d, Idem 4 clb. aniseed, value 405. subsidy is. Idem 12 stone orchil, value 20?. subsidy 12^/.

38. TNA, E122 199/1. Latin, my translation. The existence of these references to 'The Matthew of Bristol' was first noted by Williamson, Cabot Voyages, 206. All merchants are listed as English subjects, unless otherwise stated.




fo. 5ir

A small ship called the Mathewe of Bristol, in which Edmund Griffeth is master, came from Ireland the same day [4 May] and the same [ship] has in her:

The same master

Idem

Jonyco, alien

Idem

Idem

Edmund Griffeth

4.5 dicker salted hides, value 60s. 11 burden salt fish, value 36^. 8d. 60 lbs. wax, value 205.

120 lamb skins, value 5^.

26 otter skins, value 10s. lod.

2.5 burden salt fish, value $s. \d.

subsidy 35.

subsidy 22^/.

subsidy nd. custom. }d.

subsidy 3^/. custom. 3/ subsidy 5d if. custom id. tf. subsidy $d.

fo. 55V

A small ship called the Mathewe of Bristol, in which William Claron is

master, exited towards Bordeaux the same day [13 June] and the same

[ship] has in her:

Richard Hobie 8 woollen cloths custom 9^. \d. Robert Barrero 16 woollen cloths custom i8j. Sd.

fo. 67r

A small ship called the Mathew of Bristol, in which William Claron is

master, came from Bordeaux the same day [12 August] and the same

[ship] has in her:

John Shipman 8 pipes, 3 measure woad, subsidy 40^. nd. \f value ?40 i8i". yd.40

Idem 1 tun vinegar, value 40^. subsidy is. Idem 10 tons salt, value ?4 3s. 4^. subsidy 4s. id. William Jeffereis 22 pipes woad, value ?110 subsidy nos.

39- 'Pann sine grano', a woollen cloth of assize. 40. 32 measures of woad = 2 pipes = 1 ton.





Richard Hobie

Humphrey Brown

Robert Barrero

fo 72r

3 pipes, 10 measures woad, value ?18 is. 6d.

1.5 pipes woad, value

?7 IOS. 10 pipe, 12 measures woad, value ?53 155-.

subsidy iSs. id. if.

subsidy js. 6d.

subsidy 535. yd.

A small ship called the Mathew of Bristol, in which William Claron is

master, exited towards Spain the same day [28 August] and the same

[ship] has in her:

Roger Dawes Idem

William Hurste

John Grene Idem

John Shipman &

John Ware

John Shipman

Richard Hobie

Idem

John Meysam Thomas Hawkens Robert Barrero William Thorne

John Edee William Aphowell John Ware & John

Shipman John Jansie Richard Hobie Robert Rowlowe

John Qwirke Thomas Badcok Robert Rowlowe Thomas Aphowell William Estbie Robert Rowlowe

i woollen cloth

14 'Dozen' woollen cloths41

13.5 woollen cloths

1.5 woollen cloths 2 dozen tanned calf skins, value $s. 36 woollen cloths

8 cwt. worked tin, value ?12

43 cwt. worked lead, value ?10 i<ys. 9 woollen cloths 8 woollen cloths 8 woollen cloths 10 woollen cloths

5 woollen cloths 20 woollen cloths

7 woollen cloths 6 woollen cloths

8 woollen cloths

7 woollen cloths 8 woollen cloths 1 woollen cloth 8 woollen cloths 2 woollen cloths 2 woollen cloths

5 woollen cloths

7 woollen cloths

custom i^d. custom $s. id.

custom 155-. yd. custom zid.

subsidy 3d.

custom 425.

subsidy 125.

subsidy 10s. yd.

custom \os. 6d. custom 95. 4^/. custom 9*. ̂ d. custom us. Sd. custom 5s. lod. custom 235. 4d. custom 8*. id. custom js.

custom 95. \d. custom %s. id. custom 95. \d. custom \\d. custom 9s. \d. custom is. ^d. custom is. ^d. custom 5^. lod. custom 85. id.

4i. A 'Dozen' is a short cloth (12 yards long) which paid half the custom ofa standard cloth of assize.





Appendix II

Survey of Bristol shipping, 16 January 151342

The certificacion made unto the kynges most noble grace by the custommers of hys porte of Bristow of all the Navie of shippes and vessells now beinge in the sayd porte the xvith day of January the iiiith

yeir of hys moste noble rayn sue as well ofthe names ofthe sayd shipps and vessells as also the names of the ownars and portage of the same

shipps and vessells as here after playnly doth a pere, furste,

Ownars John Shipman

John Ware

John Messam

Martyn Pollard

Ownar John Collas

Ownar Nicholas Browne

Ownars John Shipman

William Shipman Robert Buntre Thomas Dale

Ownars John Hall

William Geffreys Ownar William Geffreys

Ownars William Geffreys

John Hall

John Graunte

Ownar William Geffreys William Lane

John Spacheford Ownar John Shipman

Ownar Heugh Elyett

The Trinitie of the portage of cxxxvi tons

The Elizabeth of the portage of c tons

The margrett of the portage of cx tons

The Mary Christoffer ofthe portage of cx tons

The Edward of the portage of c tons

The Trinite Grace ofthe portage of iiiixx tons

The mary kat^Tyn ofthe portage of cxxx ton

The Barbara ofthe portage of cx tons

The new mathew of the portage of cxx tons

The Mary Penrice or the portage of lxiiii tons

42. TNA, SP1/3, no. 87. The Christian names ofthe owners ofthe Lytyll Jesus come from SP1/229 fo. 197.





Ownar John Shipman

Robert Butre Thomas Donell

Ownars John Ede

Robert Butre

John Shipman

Ownar John Drews

Ownar Nicholas Brown

Ownar John Messan

Ownars Rais a price

Humfrey hosgrove Ownar John Collas

Ownar Nicholas Browne

The Lytyll Jesus of the portage of lx tons

The Lytill Christoffer ofthe portage of lx tons

The pinnace that was takyn of portage of lxx tons

The Mary James The mawdelen of the portage of

The Gelyan ofthe

portage of

The Antony

The George The mary Radclyf

Smale vessels which ys not redy to do service but

yf the kinges grace comraands the ownars to make them redy by a

day lymyted by hys grace




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