Maritime record MWX2156 - Le Cristofre

Owner: Sibyl Flathe, Yarmouth Date of Loss Qualifier: R Additional sources cited in United Kingdom Shipwreck Index: CPR.Edward II 1306

[LE CRISTOFRE entry]: Stranded/Total loss (1)(2)

["Unidentified" vessel entry]: '…lost under Corfe, some crew and two dogs escaped alive, the people carried away goods and destroyed the ship.' (1)(2)

A Bordeaux vessel lost "under Corfe", cargo stolen and vessel broken up. (3)

'In the following year (1306) a Bordeaux vessel was lost under Corfe, and although some of the crew and two dogs escaped alive, the people thereabouts carried away the cargo and destroyed the ship. Piracy became so prevalent that in 1311 the county had a commission of inquiry to itself in order to ascertain why so many foreign merchantmen were plundered in Dorset waters.' (4) (This source cites the following sources; Patent 34 Edw. I, m. 28 d. [source 5]; Patent 5 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 24. - this in fact refers to the SEINT GOYMELOTE.) (Taken from the 'Dorset Maritime History' section of this web site.)

'April 23, Wolvesey. Commission to Robert son of Payn and Adam atte Stock, on complaint by John Peny, Thomas de Shelvyng, Walter le Taverner, and William Motun, merchants and barons of the port of Sandwich, that whereas they laded a ship called LE CRISTOFRE at Bordeaux with goods for Lodnon, and in coming to England towards Purbyk the ship was wrecked near Corfe Castle, but some men and two dogs came to shore alive, whereby it could not be considered to be wreck of the sea, yet some men of the county of Dorset cut the ship and gear to pieces, and carried away the goods.' (5)

NB: It is unclear at this period whether Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight or Great Yarmouth, also called simply Yarmouth, is the place being referred to, and the registration place is therefore double-indexed.

NB: Sources (1) and (2) contain an entry for a French vessel on her passage from Bordeaux which stranded at Corfe Castle in 1306, quoting that she was "lost under Corfe, some crew and two dogs escaped alive, the people carried away goods and destroyed the ship." This record is based solely on the Dorset Magazine, source (3), which quotes this item and this is, in fact, derived from source (5), which clearly names the vessel as the CRISTOFRE.

In other words, the voyage details, place of loss and year of the "unidentified" wreck and the CRISTOFRE are the same, but the so-called "unidentified" vessel has French nationality attributed to it in source (1)(2), whereas these sources describe the CRISTOFRE as belonging to Yarmouth.

Owner: Sibyl Flathe, Yarmouth (1)

Date of Loss Qualifier: Approximate date of loss

The building date for this vessel is an estimate based on an average age at wrecking of twenty years. This average is derived from those vessels wrecked on the Dorset coast whose age at wrecking is known.

<1> Larn, Richard, 1992, United Kingdom shipwreck index, Extracted 23 November 1992 (Index). SWX5030.

<2> Larn, R, and Larn, B, 1995, Shipwreck index of the British Isles, volume 1 : Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset Section 6, Dorset (AJ) Vol 1 (Monograph). SWX4541.

<3> 1975, Dorset magazine : the county magazine vol. 48, 12 (Article in serial). SWX4573.

<4> < http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Naval.html >, Accessed 24-MAR-2003 (Digital archive). SDO20518.

<5> Calendar of Patent Rolls, IV, 473, Edward I, 1301-7, membrane 28d (Unpublished document). SDO20500.

<6> Le Pard, G, 1995-2003, Dorset Coast Forum Maritime Archaeological Database, Shipwreck 311 (Digital archive). SWX8707.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 900408 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 20 2024 6:29AM