Editing Richard Amerike

{{Short description|Anglo-Welsh merchant, royal customs officer, and sheriff}}
{{EngvarB|date=October 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}
'''Richard ap Meryk''' (or '''ap [[Meurig]]'''), anglicised to '''Richard Amerike''' (or '''Ameryk''') ({{circa}} 1440–1503) was an English merchant, royal customs officer and later, [[sheriff]] of Bristol. Several claims have been made for Amerike by popular writers of the late twentieth century. One was that he was the major funder of the voyage of exploration launched from Bristol by the Venetian [[John Cabot]] in 1497, and that Amerike was the owner of Cabot's ship, the ''[[Matthew (1497 ship)|Matthew]]''.<ref name="BBC Hist">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/americaname_01.shtml#three |title=BBC History in Depth; The Naming of America; Richard Amerike |author=MacDonald, Peter |accessdate=24 February 2011|date=17 February 2011 |publisher=BBC History}}</ref> The other claim revived a theory first proposed in 1908 by a [[Bristol]]ian scholar and amateur historian, [[Alfred Hudd]]. Hudd's theory, greatly elaborated by later writers, suggested that the continental name [[Americas|America]] was derived from Amerike's surname in gratitude for his sponsorship of Cabot's successful discovery expedition to 'the new World'.  However, neither claim is backed up by hard evidence, and the consensus view is that [[Naming of America|America is named]] after [[Amerigo Vespucci]], the Italian explorer.

==Biography==
[[File:Richard Ap Meryk name variants.jpg|thumb|Variants of Richard Ap Meryk's name as found in contemporary documents]]
"Amerike" is an anglicised spelling of the [[Welsh language|Welsh]] name ''ap [[Meurig]]'', ''ap Meuric'' or ''ap Meryk'', which means "son of Meurig".<ref name="BBC Hist"/> It was, however, only one of the many different ways that the customs officer's name was rendered, even in official documents. The "Amerike" version was noted by some modern historians because it looked like "America" and because this was how his name was spelled on a tomb brass created for his daughter in 1538.<ref>Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), p. 98 n. 13.</ref>

Ap Meryk's place and date of birth are unknown. One modern author suggests that Richard Amerike was born in 1445 at Meryk Court, [[Weston under Penyard]], near [[Ross-on-Wye]], Herefordshire.<ref name="BBC Hist"/> He may have been born earlier than this, since one of Amerike's daughters, Joan, was married to a future lawyer, John Broke, by April 1479.<ref name="ellis_clifton">A. S. Ellis, [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v003/bg003211.pdf 'On the manorial History of Clifton'], ''Transactions Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society'', vol. 3 (1878–79). Date corrected from MS. Retrieved 12 March 2016.</ref> While there were certainly Merricks in and around Weston under Penyard,<ref>M. Faraday, ''Calendar of Hereford Probates 1407–1550'' (2009)</ref> Richard Amerike's genealogy and connection to Merrick Court have not been verified. The only contemporary document to refer to his background states that he was from [[Chepstow]], a town in [[Monmouthshire]], [[Wales]].<ref name="auto">Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), p. 75</ref>

Little is known of the first thirty years of Ap Meryk's life. His wife, married at an unknown date, was called Lucy.<ref name="Broome">Rodney Broome, ''Amerike: the Briton who gave America its Name'' (Gloucester, 1992), pp. 165–67</ref> The latter part of Amerike's adult life was spent in, or near, [[Bristol]]. This was one of the largest ports of medieval England.<ref>E. M. Carus-Wilson, ''Medieval Merchant Venturers'' (2nd edn, London, 1967), pp. 1–13</ref><ref name="Fleming and Costello">Peter Fleming and Kieran Costello, ''Discovering Cabot's Bristol'' (Bristol, 1998)</ref> Amerike prospered as a merchant and, after 1485, as a gentleman and an officer of the Crown. He is first found in Bristol customs accounts in 1472, trading in Irish fish.<ref>Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), p. 98</ref> The published customs accounts of 1479–1480 show him continuing to trade to Ireland, but also participating in Bristol's valuable trade with Portugal and [[Bordeaux]].<ref>E. M. Carus-Wilson, [http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/History/bristolrecordsociety/publications/brs07.pdf ''The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages'' (Bristol Record Society 1937)], pp. 246, 256, 263, 268, 278, 280.</ref> In other years he also traded to Spain.<ref name="Carus-Wilson">E. M. Carus-Wilson, [http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/History/bristolrecordsociety/publications/brs07.pdf ''The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages'' (Bristol Record Society 1937)], pp. 150–51</ref> Amerike was a burgess of Bristol by at least the mid-1470s.<ref name="Carus-Wilson"/> Becoming a burgess would have both admitted him as a freeman of the city and marked him as a member of its political elite.<ref name="Fleming and Costello"/> By this time he was sufficiently wealthy to lend £50 towards the ransom from Breton pirates of a great-nephew of [[William Canynges]].<ref name="Carus-Wilson"/> A Bristol tax return of 1484 records that his household servants included an Icelander.<ref>David Beers Quinn, ''England and the Discovery of America'' (London, 1974), pp. 49–51.</ref> He was also buying land. By the early 1490s Amerike's main landed estate, acquired by purchase, seems to have been in [[Long Ashton]] on the Somerset side of the River Avon.<ref name="ellis_clifton"/><ref name="Broome"/>

When Amerike traded as a merchant, he would have used a distinctive [[merchant's mark]] to identify his goods. Unfortunately when Amerike shipped on the ''Trinity'' of Bristol for a voyage to Andalucia in 1480 the purser, whose private accounts survive, failed to record the mark of Amerike, or indeed of any other merchant shipping.<ref>T. F. Reddaway and Alwyn A. Ruddock, 'The Accounts of John Balsall, Purser of the ''Trinity'' of Bristol', Camden Miscellany XXIII (Camden Society, 4th Series, 1969), pp. 1–28</ref> The mark associated with Amerike in modern times<ref name="Broome"/> belongs to a different man, living a century later.<ref>Alfred E. Hudd, ''Bristol Merchant Marks'' (reprinted 1915 from the ''Proceedings of the Clifton Antiquarian Club'', vol 7 part 2) p. 86, mark 480</ref>

In 1485 Richard Amerike was appointed to the customs service in Bristol's neighbouring port of [[Bridgwater]], with the post of controller of customs. This should have meant that he dwelled within the confines of the port (which included [[Minehead]] and [[Combwich]]), but whether he did so is unknown. In September 1486 Amerike became one of the customs officials in Bristol, holding the post of King's Customs Officer, known as a "Customer", from 1486 until December 1502.<ref name="auto"/> During his period of office he was several times accused of malpractice, including false accounting, and was obliged to pay a substantial sum of money to the King, [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]], for his pardon.<ref>Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), p. 76</ref> As a customs officer Amerike could not hold high civic office since this was forbidden by Statute but at the first election after he had ceased to be Customer, he was appointed as one of the city's two sheriffs. He died in post, probably around December 1503, and was replaced as sheriff by Robert Thorne.<ref>[http://www.uh.edu/waalt/index.php/Bristol_Officials_1500-1549 'Bristol Officials 1500–1549'] WAALT, University of Houston. Retrieved 14 March 2016.</ref> Amerike's precise date of death and place of burial are unknown.<ref name="Broome"/> His heirs were his daughters, only one of whom is known. Joan (or Jane) Broke (née Amerike) (d. 1538) lies beside her husband, John Broke, in the church of [[St Mary Redcliffe]], Bristol. Their tomb brass names Richard Amerike as her father, and once included the arms of both Broke and Amerike.<ref>John Baker, ''The Men of Court 1440–1450'' (Selden Society, 2012) Vol 1, p. 369</ref> This is now missing. Some two centuries after the armorial scutcheon disappeared, the arms of Amerike were described as "paly of six, or and azure, on a fess gules, three mullets argent".<ref name="ellis_clifton"/><ref name="Broome"/>

==Richard Amerike and John Cabot==
Popular interest in Amerike centres on his association with the Venetian explorer Zuan (Giovanni) Caboto, better known as [[John Cabot]]. Under the authority of King [[Henry VII of England]] John Cabot led three voyages of discovery from Bristol in search of new lands and a route to the supposed riches of the East. The first expedition, of 1496, was abortive. The second, in 1497, was the famous expedition in the ''[[Matthew (1497 ship)|Matthew]]'' of Bristol, which found "new land" that Cabot thought was part of Asia but was probably the modern [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]]. The outcome of the third voyage of 1498 is unclear, and the subject of much speculation.<ref name="Alwyn">Evan T. Jones, [https://archive.today/20110711145918/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119408885/HTMLSTART "Alwyn Ruddock: John Cabot and the Discovery of America"], ''Historical Research'' Vol 81, Issue 212 (2008), pp. 224–54.</ref> It has always been thought that funding for the voyages came from Bristol merchants.<ref name="Jones merchants">{{Cite journal|url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CXXI/492/778/501290|title=The Matthew of Bristol and the Financiers of John Cabot's 1497 Voyage to North America|first=Evan|last=Jones|date=1 June 2006|journal=The English Historical Review|volume=CXXI|issue=492|pages=778–795|via=academic.oup.com|doi=10.1093/ehr/cel106}}</ref> This made sense, since under the terms of Cabot's letters patent from Henry VII, which gave him his authority, all trade from any new lands discovered was to pass through Bristol.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1496cabotpatent.htm|title=Cabot letters Patent, 1496|website=bris.ac.uk}}</ref> However, no list of sponsors has ever been found, and the only proven funding, in amounts insufficient for a voyage, came from the London branch of the Florentine banking house of the [[Bardi family|Bardi]] and, in 1498, from Henry VII.<ref>Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, 'John Cabot and his Italian financiers' ''Historical Research'' 85 (2012), pp. 372–93</ref> Other names have been suggested.<ref name="Alwyn"/>

The idea that Richard Amerike was an important supporter of Cabot gained currency in the late 20th century among popular historians, as did the notion that Amerike was owner and main funder of the ''Matthew'', Cabot's ship of 1497.<ref name="BBC Hist"/> Evan Jones and Margaret Condon, of the [[University of Bristol]]'s [http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/ "Cabot Project"] have found no documentary evidence for any of this. Indeed, they suggest that Ap Meryk may have been hostile to Cabot because the terms of the explorer's royal patent would have made it difficult for the port's customs officers to profit from any trade established to new lands. This may explain why the customs officers created problems for the explorer by refusing to pay the initial instalment of the pension he was granted in December 1497, despite the existence of an order from the King stating that this should happen.<ref>Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016).</ref>

Richard Amerike did have one important responsibility towards John Cabot. Amerike, and his fellow customs officer, Arthur Kemys, were the paymasters for the pension of £20 a year granted by Henry VII to John Cabot on 13 December 1497. Cabot's grant specified that he was to be paid out of revenues arising from the customs dues payable to the Crown on goods exported and imported in the port of Bristol by way of merchandise.<ref>[http://hdl.handle.net/1983/1792 Condon M. and Jones, E. T. 'The grant of a pension of £20 per year to John Cabot, 13 December 1497'], University of Bristol, ''Explore Bristol Research''. Accessed March 2016.</ref> Amerike and Kemys were responsible for collecting those revenues and accounting for them to the Exchequer at Westminster. Local payment in Bristol made a lot of sense for the explorer and, provided all the documentation was in order, Amerike and Kemys would then be able to claim the payment to Cabot as a legitimate expense when they accounted for their revenues in the Exchequer at the end of the accounting year.<ref>[http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/3258589/2011cabotpensionwarrant.pdf Condon. M and Jones E.T., 'Warrant for the payment of John Cabot's pension, 22 February 1498'], University of Bristol, ''Explore Bristol Research''. Accessed March 2016.</ref> In the mid-1890s Edward Scott, a "Keeper" or senior archivist at the [[British Museum]], and from 1891 Keeper of the Muniments in [[Westminster Abbey]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/edward-scott|title=Edward Scott|first=PixelToCode|last=pixeltocode.uk|website=Westminster Abbey}}</ref> discovered a stray Exchequer document that showed this process and two years-worth of pension payments to Cabot by Amerike and his colleague in 1497–1499. In 1897 the document was published in transcript and facsimile by Scott and the Bristol antiquarian [[Alfred Hudd]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1496cabotroll.htm|title=The Cabot Roll – Customs Roll of the Port of Bristol, 1496-99|website=bris.ac.uk}}</ref> Kemys and "Richard ap Meryke" or "a Meryk" are named at the head of every section of the account. The "Cabot Roll" remains an important discovery for the history of John Cabot.<ref>James A. Williamson, ''The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VII'' (Hakluyt Society, Series II, vol 120 1962), pp. 102–03, 218–19</ref>

==Theory of the naming of America==
{{main|Naming of the Americas}}

In 1908, the local Bristol [[antiquarian]] [[Alfred Hudd]] first proposed the theory that the word ''America'' had evolved from Amerike or ap Meryk. Hudd proposed his theory in a paper which was read at 21 May 1908 meeting of the Clifton Antiquarian Club, and which appeared in Volume 7 of the club's ''Proceedings''.  Hudd's speculation has found support from more than one 21st century author, who expanded Hudd's argument with speculations about the voyages of the ''Matthew'' and later trade with the Eastern seaboard, which Amerike is known to have had financial interests in.<ref name="Broome"/> It is proposed that as a main investor, Amerike's name would have been noted on ships' rutters or working charts, indicating the locations where his cargo had been traded. It is further supposed that such secret documents could have been seized by Spanish explorers when a British voyage was mysteriously lost during the same period that [[Amerigo Vespucci]] was mapping the coast of Brazil -this information later reaching Waldseemüller. However, this cannot be verifiably proved unless original documents come to light.<ref name=cohen>{{cite web|title=The Naming of America: Fragments We've Shored Against Ourselves|url=http://www.uhmc.sunysb.edu/surgery/america.html|work=uhmc.sunysb.edu|publisher=Jonathan Cohen, Stony Brook University|accessdate=10 July 2012}}</ref><ref name="Quinn">{{cite book|last1=Quinn|first1=David B.|authorlink1=David Beers Quinn|title=Explorers and Colonies: America, 1500–1625|date=1990|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=9781852850241|page=398|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P7OuMkzGKw0C&dq=hudd+america&pg=PA398|accessdate=12 February 2016}}</ref><ref>Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), chapter 8 'The naming of the land', pp. 71–77</ref> The consensus view continues to be that [[Naming of America|America is named]] after [[Amerigo Vespucci]], the Italian explorer.<ref>John W. Hessler, ''The naming of America'' (London, 2008)</ref>

Amerike's coat of arms is coincidentally also reminiscent of the modern [[Flag of the United States]] ([[Flag of the United States|Stars and Stripes]]).<ref name=macdonald>{{cite web|title=The Naming of America|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/americaname_01.shtml#three|publisher=BBC|accessdate=10 July 2012|author=Peter MacDonald}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Rodney Broome, ''Terra Incognita: The True Story of How America Got Its Name'', (US 2001: {{ISBN|0-944638-22-8}})
* Rodney Broome, ''Amerike: The Briton who gave America its name'', (UK 2002: {{ISBN|0-7509-2909-X}})
* Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ''Amerigo, the man who gave his name to America'', (UK 2006: {{ISBN|029784802X}})
* Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, ''[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/research/cabot/cabot-and-bristols-age-of-discovery/ Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508]'' (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016). See, especially, chapter 8 'The naming of the land', pp.&nbsp;71–78.

==External links==
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/features/2002/04/29/amerike.shtml "The man who inspired America?"], BBC Features, 29 April 2002
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110720053102/http://www.umc.sunysb.edu/surgery/broome.html Jonathan Cohen, "It's All in a Name"], ''Bristol Times''
* [http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/bristol_vygs.html "Bristol Voyages"], Heritage

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Amerike, Richard}}
[[Category:People of the Tudor period]]
[[Category:1440s births]]
[[Category:1503 deaths]]
[[Category:Medieval English merchants]]
[[Category:High sheriffs of Bristol]]
[[Category:People from Ross-on-Wye]]
[[Category:People from Chepstow]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Bristol]]
[[Category:History of North America]]
[[Category:15th-century Welsh businesspeople]]
[[Category:15th-century English businesspeople]]