While shipwrecks have captured the imaginations of both the scholarly and popular spheres, David Cressy emphasizes that shipwrecks are not the end point within maritime inquiries but are rather a transition to a phase in which coastal areas—instead of the sea—become the focus. Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea examines early modern coastal community relationships through the joint lens of law and seafaring in England and Wales, thus challenging the image of barbaric wreckers of ships.
Focusing on the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, this social history does not so much introduce a new topic but contributes a more nuanced look at the law of wreccum maris (wreck of the sea), adding to the growing field around this topic of maritime law. Contemporary merchants often portrayed those who participated in salvage as barbarous and savage, looking to destroy any floundering vessel in hope of profit. However, Cressy adroitly flips this narrative, stressing that the actions of the Crown and customs officials were often more barbaric than those salvaging the cargo and even saving the crew.
With an introduction, twelve chapters, and an appendix of 850 shipwrecks found along the English and Welsh shorelines, Cressy not only discusses how and why vessels wrecked but also analyzes their deep sea recoveries and the role that wreccum maris plays in the retrieval of a variety of commodities. Several chapters delve more deeply into case studies, illustrating the many peoples involved in wrecks such as that of the Goden Grape, a Dutch merchant fluyt. With shipowners, salvagers, the Crown, and landowners staking claims over shipwrecks, interactions amongst these varied groups often depended on local conditions and various interpretations of wreccum maris.
The myths and legends that have arisen from shipwrecks have too often consigned those who salvaged them to condescension and condemnation. However, as witness statements and survivor reports show through close readings, this reputation has often been undeserved. While disastrous for merchants and mariners, shipwrecks provided opportunities for those on the shore. People of all ranks and backgrounds—from nobility to commoners as well as from admiralty to local officials—vied for what was seen as a windfall from a wreck. At times viewed as both a boon and a right, salvagers engaged in a moral economy within their local communities in which there was collaboration and competition for the sea’s bounty.
Positing the view that there is little historical evidence to suggest that salvagers and the coastal communities were barbaric in their actions surrounding these wrecks, Cressy details how community unity and stratification played a role in salvaging. When a vessel wrecked along a community’s shores, people of all classes cooperated. Cressy does illustrate that while landowners also received the most significant benefit from these wrecks, they were seen as windfalls for the local community. His chapter on the Golden Grape highlights this importance by showing how a rural community’s recovery of a cargo of raisins and oil not only helped supply additional needed nutrition to the community diet but also provided a significant increase in income needed at that time.
While much scholarly and popular literature about shipwrecks centered on the adventures and survival of castaways, Cressy’s examination of the impacts these events had on coastal communities recognizes them as events with complex consequences. While acknowledging that violent interactions did occur at times between salvagers and Crown officials, his work posits that this was not the norm. Shipwrecks were part of the costs of business for merchants as maritime and naval traffic increased along the English and Welsh coasts. Whether due to Mother Nature, human error, or simply the toll that the sea put on vessels, shipwrecks were disasters at sea that rolled onto the shore. As with many disasters, shipwrecks brought opportunities for not only heroism and cooperation but also greed and deceit as various stakeholders vied for the opportunities presented.
Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea gives readers a more nuanced understanding of the role that shipwrecks played in local communities. This work is a boon for those specializing in maritime studies as well as for readers interested in culture and the sea.
