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00:00The Bristol Channel, known in history as the Severn Sea.
00:14For centuries, this was one of the world's most important waterways.
00:20Bordered by England and Wales and facing out to the Atlantic,
00:23its strategic maritime trading position brought wealth and prosperity
00:28to Britain and Europe.
00:31Along its coastline, for over 500 years,
00:36the Welsh city of Newport was concealing what would become
00:41one of the world's most significant maritime finds.
00:48I'm standing in the exact spot where something extraordinary
00:52was discovered in 2002, a shipwreck.
00:58I'm on a mission to forensically uncover the secret story of this historic ship.
01:08Using clues and evidence painstakingly pulled together over the past two decades
01:13by an international team of archaeologists, scientists and historians.
01:24I want to unravel the mystery of the ship's true identity
01:28and try to discover exactly when the ship was sailing,
01:33where it went and who owned it.
01:37Once we start talking about ships from the medieval period,
01:43this is a unique discovery.
01:46And I'll investigate the ship's link with two of Britain's great family dynasties
01:52and two of medieval Europe's most turbulent and consequential wars.
01:58Once we get into the ship's cool,
01:59the ship's completely impossible for us to be entered into a ship.
02:03It's own space.
02:04It's this...
02:05I want to unravel the ship!
02:06Let's go!
02:07Let's go!
02:08Let's go!
02:09Let's go!
02:10Let's go!
02:10Let's go!
02:12Let's go!
02:13Let's go!
02:14Let's go!
02:15Go!
02:16Let's go!
02:18Go!
02:20Go!
02:20Go!
02:22Come!
02:22Go!
02:22Go!
02:23Go!
02:24Go!
02:24Go!
02:24Go!
02:25Go!
02:25Go!
02:26Go!
02:27Go!
02:27Over 20 years ago when this art centre in the heart of Newport was being built, by accident
02:54the construction workers came across some old timbers in the mud they were digging up.
03:03To everyone's surprise, the remains of a ship had been uncovered.
03:11Archaeologists from all over the country were called in to assess the site.
03:16They quickly realised they had something special on their hands
03:20and construction work on the art centre had to come to an immediate halt.
03:28Unlike famous shipwrecks like the Titanic and Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose,
03:34the name of this wreck couldn't be identified.
03:37So from that moment on, she became known as the Newport Ship.
03:42It's been over 20 years since she resurfaced from the Newport mud.
03:50But what exactly happened to this mysterious wreck from that moment on?
03:55Heaven Mirror has worked on shipwrecks all over the world.
04:11In 2002, when the Newport ship was found,
04:15he was just starting his career as a maritime archaeologist.
04:18He was one of the first people on the scene.
04:25So, was the Newport ship the first ship found in this area?
04:29So the intertidal mud that we get around here
04:32is incredibly good at preserving archaeological timbers.
04:36So there's been several boat finds in this area over the years.
04:39Those were incredibly well preserved.
04:40The size and the quality and quantity of preservation on the Newport ship
04:44surpasses all of these other boat finds.
04:46The Newport ship was found just a stone's throw away from here.
04:52And this is the same mud the archaeologists had to deal with
04:56as they faced the challenge of raising the wreck.
05:01The ship itself was originally buried under about seven metres worth of this.
05:05Seven metres of it?
05:06Yes, it's a huge amount.
05:08Luckily for us, most of that was removed by mechanical excavators.
05:11So our role was to go in at the final part
05:13and to clean out the mud from the very top of these archaeological timbers.
05:17We ended up with a lot of the work being done by hand
05:20just to make sure that we kept the archaeological wood in its best condition.
05:25Have you got a good nail brush to clean your hands after?
05:28Absolutely.
05:29You actually look quite clean,
05:30but I guess when you're working you get quite muddy all the time.
05:34It's so thick, this mud.
05:36I can't imagine what it would be like working in it.
05:38Shall I have a...
05:39If you have a look here, you'll get an idea of just how hard it is to work through.
05:43It's like jelly.
05:44It makes like a blanc-mange, isn't it?
05:46It's incredibly thick.
05:47It's incredibly sticky.
05:48It sticks to your tools.
05:49It sticks to your boots.
05:51That's the real challenge in working at a site like this.
05:55As the archaeologists removed the timber from the mud,
05:58the ship's many mysteries needed to be solved.
06:02Well, for us, the first thing, you know,
06:04as soon as we started investigating this site, we knew it was old,
06:06but we didn't know quite how old.
06:09We wanted to know, you know, how big was it?
06:11And we could see that the remaining wreckage
06:13was about the size of a tennis court.
06:15Gosh, I mean, that's really big.
06:17You're a marine archaeologist,
06:19but the way you're talking, it's like you're a forensic detective
06:22and this is a crime scene you're dealing with.
06:24That's very much how we treat a archaeological site.
06:27There are clues around it,
06:29and it's our role then to use that information
06:31to work out what's happened on these sites.
06:33Yeah.
06:36On my mission to find the ship's true identity and her owner,
06:52I'm also going to take a forensic approach.
06:55What clues can I find on the wreck
06:57that can help my investigation?
06:59First, I need to see the remains of the ship for myself.
07:16This industrial estate on the outskirts of Newport
07:20might seem unassuming from the outside,
07:22but inside one of its warehouses,
07:26the shipwreck's now perfectly preserved timbers are kept.
07:31Under the watchful eye of Toby Jones,
07:34who emigrated from California to Wales
07:37to work on this archaeological marvel.
07:39There are so many timbers.
07:46Yeah, there's around 1,000 timbers in here.
07:481,000 in here?
07:491,500 timbers in the next one.
07:51There's another room.
07:52Yep.
07:53I knew it would be special,
07:54but I didn't realise it would be...
07:55There'd be so much.
07:57The timbers are...
07:58Many of them are like the day they were made.
08:00So we're a few miles away from where it was found.
08:03Why is it here?
08:04Well, when they discovered the ship,
08:06they had to take it apart into thousands of individual pieces.
08:09And so ever since that time,
08:10we've been working with material as individual components.
08:13And initially it was stored underwater in tanks.
08:15And then as we progressed through the cleaning and recording,
08:18we started the conservation process.
08:23When the wreck was raised,
08:24the vulnerable timbers were at risk of breaking.
08:27So the archaeologists had the mammoth task
08:30of treating every piece of timber.
08:32It's been a painstaking process
08:36that's taken 20 years to complete.
08:39And now Toby and his team are ready for their next challenge.
08:44To rebuild the Newport ship.
08:47What we want to do is put it all back together again,
08:50reassemble it and put it on display.
08:53There's so many bits.
08:54It's a 3D jigsaw.
08:55That's sort of pressure, isn't it?
08:56It's going to be a very big job, the reassembly.
08:59When a shipwreck is discovered,
09:07rather like DNA,
09:09the timbers offer vital clues
09:11to help solve any mysteries about the ship's life.
09:15And death.
09:18As soon as the Newport ship was discovered in 2002,
09:22there were two pressing questions
09:24the experts needed to answer.
09:25How old was she?
09:28And where was she built?
09:35Lead archaeologist Nigel Nayling
09:37had the important job of dating the ship's timbers.
09:45So you were there right from the beginning.
09:47What was your initial thought
09:49when the Newport ship was found?
09:51Well, my initial thought was,
09:52we've got a problem here
09:53because we've got someone who's trying to build
09:55a £12 million art centre
09:58and we are in the middle
10:00of where they're trying to build the theatre.
10:03And really, utterly crucial to that
10:06was trying to figure out how old is this thing?
10:10If Nigel and his team failed to find a significant date,
10:14the team's research might be halted there and then
10:17and the wreck destroyed.
10:20How did you feel?
10:21Were you feeling under pressure and nervous?
10:23Huge pressure.
10:24We were working seven days a week,
10:26at least 12 hours a day per shift.
10:28And if you make the wrong decision,
10:30you could end up losing something like this forever.
10:32So how from a piece of timber can you tell the date?
10:41One of the things we can do
10:42is a process that we call dendrochronology
10:44or tree ring dating.
10:45And the pattern of ring widths in individual timbers
10:48allow us to date when the trees were cut down.
10:52When the trees are cut down,
10:53they're used fairly soon afterwards.
10:55That gives us a date for when the ship is built.
10:57A tree produces a ring once every year
11:02and the width of the ring provides a snapshot
11:05of the Earth's climate at the time.
11:10The tree rings found in the wreck's timbers
11:13could place the Newport ship
11:14in a specific and significant time in history.
11:20I was taking samples, bringing them back to the laboratory.
11:24At last, one of the samples provided us with a date.
11:27And that date put us straight into the 15th century.
11:32So we're talking medieval.
11:34Finding this was a total game changer.
11:37Once we start talking about ships from the medieval period,
11:41these are incredibly rare.
11:44This is extraordinary.
11:45We have next to nothing in terms of boat finds
11:48and certainly not a whole ship from the 15th century.
11:53This is a unique discovery.
11:54The wood has revealed the ship was sailing the seas
12:03six centuries ago.
12:06The Newport ship is much older than the Mary Rose
12:09and it's the most complete vessel
12:11from the 15th century ever discovered.
12:13This period in history is often misunderstood.
12:19But it's actually a pivotal time that paved the way for the modern world.
12:26So the 15th century is a really interesting time
12:28because at this point, Afro-Eurasia,
12:32so Africa, Europe and Asia,
12:34is really beginning to find its feet again
12:36after the Black Death had happened in the later part of the 14th century.
12:40You've got to understand that Black Death is such a big deal
12:43that it kills 25% of the entire population of the planet.
12:46So this means that society has to basically have a total reworking.
12:50So it's a big period of demographic change,
12:53economic change and social change.
12:58We do have this image of everything being kind of dirty,
13:01uneducated and things like that.
13:03But actually, we've got some significant events happening.
13:06Things like the Renaissance,
13:08things like the invention of the printing press.
13:10For the elites, they would have been kind of dressed in their finery,
13:13living a luxurious lifestyle.
13:15And even those at the bottom of society,
13:17yes, they had to work hard.
13:18Yes, there was a constant risk of death.
13:20But equally, they would have found a lot of joy in their life
13:23and also some leisure time.
13:26The Timbers have revealed that the Newport ship
13:29was sailing in the 15th century,
13:31a time of great changes in Britain and Europe.
13:35I know her journey ends in Wales.
13:39So was she made in Britain or did she come from somewhere else?
13:43Over 1,000 artefacts were found among the remains of the shipwreck,
13:51each one serving as a clue in the archaeologist's investigation
13:54into the purpose and origins of the ship.
13:58Back in the warehouse,
14:03one of the ship's timbers holds a tantalising clue
14:06to where she was built.
14:10This is the keel of the ship,
14:12the backbone of the ship,
14:13and this little silver coin was there.
14:16And it was really, you know, an amazing find.
14:22Oh, there we are.
14:24Gosh, it's so thin!
14:26What's significant about it is the cross on it.
14:28When they build a ship, they put a coin there
14:29and they have a priest there blessing it
14:30and trying to impart that part of the ship with divine protection.
14:34It's remarkable that that coin was put there
14:36by the people who made this ship.
14:37And if you look on the other side,
14:39there's the kind of heraldic crest of Louis XI Dauphin.
14:44OK, and the Dauphin, that's like the sort of next in line
14:47to the throne in France.
14:48That's right.
14:48Like the Prince of Wales here.
14:49Exactly.
14:50So that's French.
14:51French coin.
14:53This coin suggests that the Newport ship was built in France,
14:57but it also contains another very important clue, a date.
15:04What's so significant and important is that
15:07this coin was minted in 1447.
15:10Yeah, brilliant bit of initial dating evidence
15:12that shows the ship could not have been built
15:13before that time.
15:15So that's like your bookmark.
15:17You know it can't be older than that.
15:19Yeah, absolutely not.
15:20It's just one of these rules in archaeology.
15:21You find something like this and you can take it to the bank.
15:28The date of the ship has now been narrowed down.
15:31She was sailing in the mid-15th century.
15:34But is there more evidence to confirm where she was built?
15:45For 10 years, the question of where the ship came from
15:49baffled the experts.
15:52Dendrochronology, which revealed the general age of the wood,
15:55failed to prove its origin.
15:57Until an unexpected phone call,
16:05a thousand miles from Newport,
16:07offered hope of solving this mystery.
16:12The call came from the Basque country in Spain,
16:16only nine miles from the French border.
16:18This is a shipyard museum
16:31to highlight the maritime heritage of the Basque country.
16:38Since 1985, Javier Aygote has dedicated most of his life
16:46to building an exact replica of a 16th-century galleon.
16:54Named the San Juan, the colossal clone is almost ready.
17:00And although it's from Britain's Tudor period,
17:02around a century later than the Newport ship,
17:04it gives me an idea of what a medieval ship looked like.
17:10It's so impressive.
17:13And from down here, looking up, it just looks huge.
17:16Yeah, it is.
17:26Gosh, well, on the outside it looks big.
17:28It's actually quite tight here, isn't it?
17:31Yeah, absolutely.
17:32And this is meant to transport goods.
17:35So they were creating these ships
17:37with so much space inside
17:40so they could just pack it with all the goods.
17:41Yeah, yeah.
17:43And the Basques were highly specialised
17:45in the merchant trading of Europe.
17:50When the Newport ship first came to Javier's attention,
17:54he saw characteristics in her structure
17:57that looked incredibly familiar.
17:59I realised that it was very likely a Basque ship
18:03and I recognised the same features
18:06that the one that you'd find in the San Juan.
18:09And here in the Basque country,
18:11we're specialised in building galleons.
18:13The Newport ship, it is a 15th-century galleon.
18:16So our galleon was likely built not in France
18:25but just across the border
18:27in the Spanish Basque country.
18:30What was this area like?
18:34We don't have agriculture,
18:36so the only thing we have here is forest and iron mines.
18:42So they made the nails, they made the chains,
18:44they made the anchors.
18:46I mean, everything needed for shipbuilding.
18:49Because of that, the Basque country
18:51became a highly developed maritime shipbuilding industry.
18:58So how long would it have taken them
19:00to build a ship in the 15th century,
19:02like the Newport ship?
19:03Oh, the Newport ship, maybe less than a year.
19:06They used to build the ships very quickly.
19:09The Newport ship is so exquisitely built,
19:13maybe 300 people working on it.
19:15And everybody was specialised in one duty, you know?
19:23The San Juan is nearly complete
19:26and Xavier already has his heart
19:29set on his next exciting project.
19:32My friends in Newport,
19:34they know that I would be very delighted
19:38to build a replica of the Newport ship.
19:41One that could sail?
19:44Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:45Of course, I mean, I would love, you know,
19:48to take the ship to Newport,
19:51like they did in the past.
19:54This will be a huge undertaking,
19:57and Xavier has set me a challenge
19:59to make a start on the replica of the Newport ship.
20:04OK, Sean, would you like to try being a blacksmith?
20:09I'll give it a go,
20:10but I don't know that I'll be any good.
20:17I've been given the job of making an iron nail
20:19using the exact same methods as the Newport ship.
20:26Around 27,000 nails would have been needed
20:29just to make the ship's hull.
20:31So every little helps.
20:36And after a few attempts,
20:39I've finally managed to create something
20:41that resembles a nail.
20:46Here you go, Sean.
20:48You just created the first nail
20:50for the replica of the Newport ship.
20:52This is the first nail?
20:53Well, yeah.
20:54Gosh.
20:56I'm honoured.
20:58Wow, thank you.
21:01I now have evidence that proves
21:06this is no longer purely a British investigation.
21:10It's an international one
21:12that starts here in the Basque Country
21:14and ends in the mud in Wales.
21:16But what happened in the middle of this story
21:19about the Newport ship?
21:20How, from San Sebastian,
21:25did she end up submerged
21:27on the bank of the River Usk in Wales?
21:31It seems clear that during her lifetime,
21:34the Newport ship must have worked as a merchant ship.
21:38She would have sailed
21:39when trade and the economy were booming across Europe.
21:42So, what role did Britain play
21:45in this trading network?
21:49So, there's lots of shipping
21:51happening back and forth.
21:53And particularly in England and Wales,
21:55what they're doing is
21:56they're taking these commodities
21:57like wool, like coal,
21:59and they're moving them over to the continent.
22:02But they're also bringing lots of stuff back.
22:04So, you might be getting up wine from France.
22:07That's a really big one.
22:08Or you might be getting in luxury goods from Italy,
22:11like silks or jewels.
22:14Just 20 miles from Newport, across the Channel,
22:17was one of Britain's fastest-growing ports in Bristol.
22:22Bristol, at this time,
22:24is one of the biggest trading centres in the country.
22:27So, it both handles a lot of the local trade,
22:29distributing goods out to all of the different parts
22:31of Wales and the West Country,
22:33but also handling international trade,
22:36trade with Ireland, trade with France,
22:39and trade with the Iberian Peninsula,
22:41Spain and Portugal.
22:44Newport, during this period,
22:45acted as a ship service centre
22:47for Bristol's maritime trade.
22:50I want to see if the shipwreck reveals
22:52what goods the ship was carrying
22:54and where it was trading.
22:59So, during the excavation of the ship,
23:01they found over 100 parts and pieces
23:03related to casks and barrels on board the ship.
23:05And they were used for carrying wine.
23:09And these were quite large, these casks.
23:12And this is just one stave.
23:14It's made of oak.
23:15But what's so interesting about this one
23:16is that it's got little holes drilled in it
23:18where they had sampled or pilfered
23:21some of the contents during the use of the cask.
23:23So, it was a jolly old ship, was it?
23:25They had a laugh.
23:26Well, I think the sailors, yeah,
23:27might have been helping themselves
23:28now and again to some of the cargo
23:30because one journey could be hugely profitable
23:33because it's, in terms of capacity,
23:36the ship held an enormous amount of wine.
23:38If you were to pour those casks of wine
23:40into modern-day bottles,
23:42that 175 tonnes is 225,000 bottles of wine
23:46in a single trip.
23:47And so, that's one big party.
23:50Yep.
23:55I now know for certain
23:57that the Newport ship traded wine
23:59in the middle of the 15th century.
24:02And she was built very close to the French border.
24:05So, was she carrying French wine to Wales?
24:1115th century Wales was under English rule,
24:14mainly a rural society with a few small settlements,
24:17but not without castles, grand homes and abbeys.
24:22So, how popular would foreign wine have been here at this time?
24:28The answer is taking me 120 miles north of Newport
24:33to the haunting ruins of a medieval abbey.
24:37Aarig Salisbury is an expert on the poets of the late Middle Ages.
24:48These were the most reliable chroniclers
24:51of medieval life and society.
24:55Aarig, what do we know about wine consumption in the Middle Ages?
24:59Well, we're very fortunate,
25:01but we have a lot of Welsh-language poems
25:04from the Middle Ages by poets who like to talk
25:07quite a bit about wine.
25:09Well, who are these poets?
25:11The main poet was Gytor Glyn.
25:13He was the greatest Welsh poet of the 15th century.
25:18He lived exactly in the same period as the Newport ship.
25:22He was probably near 80, perhaps 90 years old when he died.
25:28And this is where Gytor was buried,
25:31probably around 1490.
25:34In the 15th century, rich noblemen would pay bards like Gytor
25:42to write them poems of praise,
25:44which were then performed in grand banquets.
25:49There would be a feast in the Great Hall,
25:52long tables, lots of food, lots of wine.
25:55On the top table, the nobleman, the patron,
25:58would sit with his poet.
26:00And at the end of the feast,
26:03the poet would declaim his poem in front of everybody
26:06with musical accompaniment on the harp.
26:08Gytor Glyn's main patron was the most powerful figure in Wales,
26:15Lord William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke.
26:18And it was in his verses for Herbert that Gytor makes many references to wine.
26:25Where was the wine coming from that he was talking about?
26:28Well, the wine that he talked about in his poems came mainly from France.
26:33So he mentions places like Bayonne, Bayonne, and Gasguin, Gascony.
26:39And in talking about these expensive wines,
26:43he was basically telling us how powerful and wealthy William Herbert was.
26:48Because only a wealthy person could get wine from France.
26:51It's not like nowadays where you can buy it in the supermarket.
26:53That was a big thing.
26:54Exactly, yes.
26:55He actually calls William Herbert's home in the castle in Traglan,
26:59Bordiaws y Gwyn, the Bordeaux of wine.
27:04He imported these expensive wines and he was praised for it.
27:08Gytor Glyn was not only a poet, he was also a warrior.
27:18He was one of many Welshmen who fought in one of the longest conflicts in history,
27:23the Hundred Years' War.
27:27This was a series of brutal battles between England and France,
27:32triggered by King Edward III's claim to the French throne.
27:35And it would have a rippling effect on trade between the two nations.
27:41The Hundred Years' War is one of those things that's really difficult to explain
27:45because there's more than a hundred years of it.
27:48Basically, it all kicks off in the 14th century
27:51because the King of France dies without a male heir.
27:55Ordinarily, this wouldn't necessarily be a problem.
27:58You could just kind of kick things down through the female line.
28:01Problem with that is that the female line leads you up to the King of England.
28:07And the French were not particularly happy about the idea
28:10that the King of France would be the King of England at the same time.
28:13So, on and off, over the course of about a hundred years,
28:18they have a series of wars fighting, gaining and losing territory
28:22to determine who's the true King of France.
28:27When the war ended in 1453 with English defeat,
28:31England lost the wine regions of Gascony and Bordeaux.
28:35It was a bitter blow for the British wine merchants
28:39as they now had to look elsewhere for this valuable commodity.
28:45How did this loss of power and land in France
28:48impact the trading activity and routes of the Newport ship?
29:01Well, Adeg, it's nice to get inside into warmth.
29:04And this is a 13th-century pub,
29:06so it would have been around at the time of Gytor Glyn.
29:08And it's possible that Gytor was here
29:11because he was raised in this valley.
29:14Gytor Glyn was talking about French wine in his poetry.
29:17Is that the wine that we would have seen on the Newport ship?
29:21That's very possible, yes.
29:23Most wine, of course, came to Wales from France.
29:26But there is another possibility as well.
29:29Gytor does mention Ossai wine,
29:32wine, which was a wine from Portugal
29:36and possibly from the Lisbon area.
29:38And actually, in one of his poems to William Herbert,
29:41he mentions nefaule ossai,
29:44so heavenly ossai.
29:46That's the quality of the wine in Rhaiglan.
29:50Heavenly, so it must have tasted good.
29:52It must have.
29:53What was it like?
29:54What would it have been like, say, modern-day standards?
29:56Well, have a taste of this, just to have an idea.
30:07That's strong. That's port, isn't it?
30:09That's port, yeah. It's not wine, it's port.
30:12So Ossai was sweet wine.
30:15It wasn't probably as strong as modern port,
30:18but it's not far away.
30:21With loss of control of its French wine regions,
30:34the English and Welsh traders
30:35turned their attention to Portugal.
30:40So is there a possibility that the Newport ship's owner
30:43and even the crew were Portuguese?
30:46Back at the warehouse with Toby,
30:52I want to see whether any clues were found on the shipwreck.
30:58So the archaeologists found these coins.
31:00These are what we call small finds,
31:02and often they can be missed.
31:03It's a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.
31:07All the coins that were found were Portuguese,
31:09and there were no other nationalities of coins.
31:12When you add all that up,
31:13it looks like a very strong case for the ship
31:16having a Portuguese crew
31:18and possibly even being Portuguese-owned.
31:26There's now physical evidence
31:28that directly links the ship to Portugal.
31:33Since Gitor Glynn writes about wine from its capital, Lisbon,
31:37can I find any further evidence here
31:40that proves the Newport ship was Portuguese?
31:45Fragments of pottery were found all over the shipwreck,
31:49and Tania Kashimiro, a ceramics expert,
31:52was determined to solve the puzzle
31:54of where they came from.
31:58Tania, how did you get involved in the Newport ship project?
32:01Okay, so I went to Wales,
32:03and I went to see this collection with my own eyes.
32:06So I was able to actually see what kinds of shapes
32:09and what kind of function they had inside the ship.
32:12I still have a few of these ceramics with me.
32:15We know that this is a Portuguese ceramic.
32:17We know because it's made with Lisbon clay.
32:20It's made with the same techniques
32:21that we have seen the Lisbon potters use for hundreds of years.
32:25We found a few objects that could relate us to the crew,
32:29and I have this little, little shirt
32:31that you can say, whoa, what is that?
32:34It's the rim of a drinking cup.
32:36Oh, I see.
32:37Lisbon made, 14th to 15th century.
32:38So as soon as you see that, you know straight away?
32:41Yeah, I know. I know straight away.
32:42So I'm trying to paint a picture, of course, of the ship,
32:44but also the people on it.
32:45So is this a Portuguese crew?
32:48The million-dollar question, right?
32:50There were no English ceramics on board.
32:52The people on board, the way they live their daily lives,
32:57their daily activities,
32:58I would say that most likely this ship would be Portuguese
33:02and would be sailing with the Portuguese crew.
33:05The ceramics prove without doubt
33:08that the Newport ship was trading with Lisbon,
33:11and likely crewed with Portuguese sailors.
33:15However, I'm not yet convinced
33:17whether the ship was Portuguese-owned.
33:20To discover the ship's identity,
33:22I need to find this elusive owner.
33:29My next stop in Lisbon
33:31is Portugal's Maritime Museum.
33:35Can I find any clues here
33:37that reveal if this medieval trading galleon
33:39was Portuguese-owned?
33:41Tell me, what would Portugal have been like
33:47at the time that the Newport ship was coming here?
33:50Lisbon, due to its amazing harbour,
33:53became one of the most important trading centres of Europe.
33:57It's interesting also to remark
33:58that Lisbon is almost in the centre of the coastal line
34:02from Turkey to Norway.
34:04In the centre, we have Lisbon connecting the Mediterranean world
34:08with the Atlantic world.
34:10Now, we know the Newport ship was carrying wine.
34:12How lucrative would that have been?
34:15It should be much profitable, yes, for sure.
34:19It was Portugal the first market
34:21where most of the traders from North Europe
34:24could find good wine.
34:25So, if I was to put you on the spot
34:30and you had to say one or the other,
34:31would you say you'd think it was more likely
34:34the Newport ship could have been British-owned
34:36or more likely to be Portuguese-owned?
34:37It looks more likely to be an English owner of the ship, yes.
34:42The Portuguese system was much more focused
34:45in sailing south to waters that had not been sailed before.
34:49The 15th century saw the beginning of the age of exploration,
34:56led by great Portuguese seafarers like Vasco da Gama,
34:59who discovered the new trading routes
35:01to West Africa and India.
35:05Their sights were set far further afield
35:08than Bristol and Newport.
35:12Now you're saying it's more likely
35:14that it would be a British owner.
35:16What sort of person would it have been?
35:18A wealthy one.
35:19It's a time where capitalism
35:23is creating the first European wealthy people
35:29with high profits
35:31and who can do new investments to keep earning.
35:35But it's definitely someone with a lot of money.
35:37Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, yes.
35:44Although Portuguese crude,
35:46it seems very unlikely the Newport ship
35:49was Portuguese owned.
35:55So it looks like the Newport ship
35:56was owned by a British person
35:58and certainly someone wealthy.
36:00So my next step is to find out
36:01who were the rich and famous in Britain
36:04during the mid-15th century.
36:05I'm going to start my investigation
36:07with a name I've already come across.
36:10He lived not too far from Newport.
36:11He was the patron of the Welsh poet Gytod Glyn
36:15and he had access to foreign wines.
36:17His name was Lord William Herbert.
36:19This is Raglan Castle,
36:29which lies just 20 miles north of Newport
36:32in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire.
36:34The impressive medieval castle
36:41was once the home of Lord William Herbert
36:43and it's where he would have held
36:46his lavish wine-fjord banquets.
36:51Here I'm meeting Helen Fulton,
36:53who has written extensively
36:54about my new potential prime suspect.
36:59Helen, I've heard the name William Herbert.
37:01Who was he?
37:02So William Herbert was the lord of Raglan, Raglan Castle.
37:07He came from a noble family
37:09and a very close friend of King Edward IV.
37:14Herbert was Edward IV's right-hand man
37:18and the king showered him with land and titles.
37:23Did he have a connection to Newport,
37:25given he lived here?
37:26He did, because William was also the lord of Newport.
37:31So he, that meant that he controlled the port in Newport
37:34and controlled the waterways around Newport.
37:40He earned his money mostly from property,
37:43but he also engaged in the wine trade.
37:46He traded wine from the continent,
37:49especially Gascony, Iberia, Lisbon, places like that.
37:52But in order to engage in the wine trade,
37:54he had to have ships, and we know that he owned two ships.
37:57Oh, so he owned, he had two ships?
37:59Yes, that's right.
38:01Do we know the names of them at all?
38:02Well, we definitely know the name of one of them,
38:04which was called the Mary,
38:06and that name survives in customs records,
38:10which from 1461 recorded all the names of the merchant ships
38:15that came in and out of Bristol,
38:17so the names of the owners.
38:18Luckily, the records survived,
38:20and they're all held now in the National Archives in Kew, in London.
38:24It sounds like that should be my next port of call.
38:26Why not?
38:27Thousands of the country's most important documents
38:37are kept in Britain's National Archives.
38:48And with the help of archivist Paul Dryberg,
38:51I'm hoping the records here can at last reveal
38:54the identity of the Newport ship.
38:57Hi, Paul.
39:04I can see you've got some documents for me here.
39:06So what we have here
39:07are the accounts of customs collectors in Bristol
39:10from the very early part of Edward the Force Reign, so 1466.
39:14Each of these set-off paragraphs is a single ship or a boat,
39:18and it tells you what they're shipping
39:20and how much tax or subsidy they've paid.
39:23So I've got sort of two things we're trying to find out.
39:26Firstly, William Herbert and his ship called Mary.
39:30And then is that ship the Newport ship that I'm looking for?
39:33Okay, sure.
39:34And there might actually be one ship here
39:35that I think you might be really interested in.
39:37I mean, I can see their letters,
39:40but I haven't got a clue what it means.
39:41So that in Latin says Navis Mercator La Meri,
39:45spelt with a V in N.
39:45That says Mary, does it?
39:46Mary Herbert.
39:47Ah.
39:48H-E-R-B-E-R-D.
39:50Herbert?
39:51Yeah.
39:51So this is the surname of William Herbert?
39:53Oh, yeah, indeed, yeah.
39:54I mean, is that a common thing,
39:55to name your ship after yourself?
39:57No, it's possible that if a ship or its owner was so well-known,
40:01they would just use the surname,
40:03rather than saying the Mary Herbert of Newport, say,
40:05or the Mary of Newport,
40:06it would just be the Mary Herbert.
40:07Then everybody would know,
40:08oh, well, it's William Herbert.
40:09We all know it is.
40:10So what clues have we got here
40:12that maybe hint that this is the Newport ship?
40:15OK, well, it tells us it's leaving Bristol
40:18to go towards Lisbon.
40:20This tells you what they're shipping,
40:21which is cloth in this case.
40:23So do we know what year this was?
40:25Yeah, so it would be the 2nd of October, 1465.
40:30So given that this is a record
40:32of the Mary Herbert going out of Bristol,
40:36there'll be records of the ship coming back?
40:38Yeah, there are.
40:39And in fact, actually,
40:39if we move to our second docking which we've got out,
40:42it's actually the customs account for the same port,
40:45but for the following year.
40:47If we go down...
40:48Mary Herbert.
40:50Bingo.
40:51There you go.
40:52So that's the Mary...
40:52It's the same ship.
40:53And we know it's the same ship
40:54because it says coming from Lisbon
40:57on the 15th of March in the 6th year.
41:01And so this time, though,
41:02the cargoes are totally different.
41:05So it's got 38 tonnes of wine.
41:07So lots of barrels on board.
41:09And he's bringing back stuff that English people want,
41:12aristocrats want,
41:13and in this case, presumably William Herbert,
41:15things that you can't always get in South Wales.
41:17Yeah, yeah.
41:18So we don't know 100%,
41:20but this looks very much like it's a William Herbert ship,
41:24given it's got the Herbert name.
41:26And that's really exciting, isn't it?
41:28Yeah, definitely.
41:28This could be our Newport ship.
41:30Could well be.
41:33The records confirm that, just like the Newport ship,
41:37the Mary Herbert was carrying wine from Lisbon to Bristol.
41:41And in 1466, exactly the right time period.
41:45Wow, it really feels like the ship is starting to reveal her secrets
41:54when it comes to those two key questions.
41:57Is the Mary Herbert the Newport ship?
42:00And was William Herbert, known for his love of wine
42:02and in possession of a ship called Mary, the owner?
42:06Well, right now, the evidence makes me think
42:09that there's a strong possibility.
42:10Next time,
42:21my investigation to prove the identity of the Newport ship
42:26continues with more twists and turns.
42:29This letter is almost like gold dust for me in my search
42:34because so many things are linking up.
42:36Yeah.
42:36Using evidence from the shipwreck,
42:41I'll discover what it was like to be a sailor
42:43on the perilous route between Lisbon and Wales.
42:47It would have been necessary to defend the Newport ship
42:50against pirates.
42:54And find out how the ship's fate and ownership
42:58could have dramatically changed
43:00due to Britain's bloodiest civil war.
43:04The Wars of the Roses.
43:06Between the Great Royal Houses of the Yorkists
43:10and the Lancastrians.
43:12The Wars of the World Namens.
43:12The Wars of the 타hd
43:15And that will be a loud voice
43:17toline the new shipwrecked
43:19on the towers Gens.
43:20The Bwerth
43:33and the Japanese
43:34planets
43:35of the shipwrecked
43:35and the heraus
43:37have happened
43:37in the near
43:38circumstances.
43:39Transcription by CastingWords
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