It will long be believed that Cabot…
April 1500 CE
It will long be believed that Cabot and his fleet had been lost at sea.
For centuries, no other records will be found (or at least published) that relate to Cabot’s 1498 expedition; But at least one of the men scheduled to accompany the expedition, Lancelot Thirkill of London, is recorded as living in London in 1501.
The historian Alwyn Ruddock, who worked on Cabot and his era for thirty-five years, had suggested that Cabot and his expedition successfully returned to England in the spring of 1500.
She claimed their return followed an epic two-year exploration of the east coast of North America, south into the Chesapeake Bay area and perhaps as far as the Spanish territories in the Caribbean.
Ruddock suggested Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis and the other friars who accompanied the 1498 expedition had stayed in Newfoundland and founded a mission.
If Carbonariis founded a settlement in North America, it would have been the first Christian settlement on the continent, and may have included a church, the only medieval church to have been built there.
The Cabot Project at the University of Bristol was organized in 2009 to search for the evidence on which Ruddock's claims rest, as well as to undertake related studies of Cabot and his expeditions.
The lead researchers on the project, Evan Jones and Margaret Condon, claim to have found further evidence to support aspects of Ruddock's case, particularly in relation to the successful return of the 1498 expedition to Bristol.
They have located documents that appear to place John Cabot in London by May 1500 but have yet to publish their documentation.
Ruddock claimed that William Weston of Bristol, a supporter of Cabot, undertook an independent expedition to North America in 1499, sailing north from Newfoundland up to the Hudson Strait.
If correct, this was probably the first North West Passage expedition.
Jones in 2009 confirmed that William Weston (who was not previously known to have been involved) led an expedition from Bristol, with royal support, to the "new found land" in 1499 or 1500, making him the first Englishman to lead exploration of North America.
This find has changed the understanding of English roles in exploration of that continent.
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