Virtual Grub Street: The King's Esnecce.

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The King's Esnecce
The King's Esnecce as Air Force One

Among the glorious benefits of having most of the Pipe Rolls[1] of the reign of Henry II is that the researcher can so constantly find themselves at a total loss. This, of course, is a sign that they may be about to embark upon a fascinating journey.

While doing other research, I noticed a reference in the Rolls to an “esnecce”. A note did tell me that it was a kind of ship but that was far too little to satisfy my obsessive desire to know every small detail. It was only after several hours that I was even able to ascertain that it was not a Latin word but a Latin transliteration of a Norman French word, snecca, which was itself a transliteration of a family of Norse words: snacca (O.E.), snaekke (Dan.), snaekkia (Swed.), snekkja (Slav), etc. The Latin adaptations used by Norman administrators included: esnecca, esnecce, esneke, esneque, isnechia, ilnechia, hilnachio, necchiae, necchiae, etc.

This was just the beginning. With each step the journey was only getting longer. The first mention of Henry II’s esnecce is an early charter dated approximately 1155-56, at the beginning of the king’s reign. Being among the first matters of business, it was more important than a great many other important things. To “Roger, son-in-law of Albert,” was given care of the ship, and, by way of payment, he and his heirs received control of the lands that that attached to the office.[2]

But we must go back half a century to pick up the thread, to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Ordericus. This for two very important reasons. Ordericus Vitalis, a 12^th century monk of St. Evroult, wrote the great Norman chronicle generally referred to as the Historia Ecclesiastica. It is the only record we have of the incident of the White Ship (Blanche-Nef).[3]

Thomas, the son of Stephen, had obtained an audience of the king, and offering him a gold mark, said to him, "Stephen, the son of Airard, was my father, and during his whole life he was in your father's service as a mariner. He it was who conveyed your father to England in his own Ship, when he crossed the sea to make war on Harold. He was employed by your father in services of this description as long as he lived, and gave him such satisfaction that he honoured him with liberal rewards, so that he lived in great credit and prosperity among those of his own class. My lord king, I ask you to employ me in the same service, having a vessel, called the Blanche-Nef, which is fitted out in the best manner, and perfectly adapted to receive a royal retinue." The king replied: "I grant your request; but I have already selected a ship which suits me, and I shall not change: however, I entrust to you my sons, William and Richard, whom I love as myself, with many of the nobility of my realm."

Here we learn that Stephen Fitz (i.e. “son of”) Airard[4] was the captain (then known as “steer-man”) of William the Conqueror’s personal ship during the 1066 channel crossing to invade England.

Next we learn of the potentially tragic nature of a channel crossing:

The crew consisted of fifty experienced rowers, besides an armed marine force, who were very disorderly, and as soon as they got on board insolently took possession of the benches of the rowers, and being very drunk forgot their station, and scarcely paid respect to any one…. But as the drunken rowers exerted themselves to the utmost in pulling the oars, and the luckless pilot steered at random and got the ship out of its due course, the starboard bow of the Blanche-Nef struck violently on a huge rock, which is left dry, every day, when the tide is out, and covered by the waves at high water. Two planks having been shattered by the crash, the ship, alas ! filled and went down.

The sons of Henry I drowned. The kingdom was left without an heir. When Henry died, the kingdom collapsed into a bloody, destructive civil war between the forces of Stephen of Blois and Henry’s daughter, the Empress Maud, that lasted nearly 15 years and ended with Stephen as a temporary king and England in an exhausted state of limbo.

It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel. He would be crossing to his French possessions on a regular basis. It was a trip through dangerous and often hostile waters and needed a strong ship and a steady steer-man.

Next: How were esneccae used? >>

[1] Accounting records of the transactions of the King’s treasury.

[2] Haskins, Charles Homer. Norman Institutions. 121-2. “Sciatis me reddidisse et concessisse Willelmo et Nicholao, filiis Rogeri generi Alberti,… ministerium meum de esnecca mea cum liberatione que pertinet et totam terram Rogeri generi Alberti et feoda omnia que ipse Rogerus tenuit in capite de rege H. avo meo…”.

[3] Ordericus. The Ecclesiastical History England And Normandy by Ordericus Vitalis. Thomas Forester, transl.

34-5.

[4] Also written “Erard”.

Medieval Scavagers: First, what they were not. November 18, 2018. ‘The fact that the professor quoted Riley — regardless that neither he nor Riley were able to give a single citation to support their claim — began a now venerated commonplace that Medieval “Scavagers” began by collecting the English tax called the “Scavage”.’
Connections: Henry II, Toulouse, 1159. November 27, 2018. “Once he became Chancellor, Becket never looked back. He abandoned his duties as Archdeacon and preaching duties attached to his other positions. He outfitted a lavish household and lived like a secular lord.”
The Nymphs of Doctor Foreman’s Macbeth. October 21, 2018. “How did Foreman make the mistake of describing them precisely as Holinshed? But differently from the text we have of Macbeth? To consider Foreman’s account a simple mistake would require an astronomically improbable coincidence.”
Let the sky rain potatoes! December 16, 2017. "In fact, the sweet potato had only just begun to be a delicacy within the reach of splurging poets and playwrights and members of the middle classes at the time that The Merry Wives of Windsor (the play from which Falstaff is quoted) was written. The old soldier liked to keep abreast of the new fads."
Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.