Sneezum's Finale?

 

No research done on the date of the
acquisition of the family crest.
But it IS impressive.

Sneezum's Corner, Fore Street, Ipswich 1900

New to Bury St Edmunds in 2022, I was charmed to stumble across a very large shop in the middle of town, named, Sneezum’s, I silently considered the name must be one of those quaint Suffolkian words with rural roots in the long ago. This week I went into the shop in search of a watch battery and discovered, as I did so, that the shop, on two floors and occupying a large area selling a wide range of goods from jewellery to well, almost anything, was closing. A query elicited the news that the owners were retiring and that a Sneezum's had graced the town centre in various streets since 1874! The longevity of one family owning shops in one small town for a century and a half, is impressive but even more wonderful was the name which I decided must be much older than one hundred and fifty years. And so I have wandered among fables of early mediaeval naming based on the ways ordinary people lived. It is about modest citizens, their humble social customs, and their astonishingly lengthy effects on English social and linguistic development.

The Domesday Book and its creator

Yet again, the Domesday Book, 1086, effectively the first census in the country, is hugely important, its name, Domesday, indicating that William (the Conqueror) intended that those holders registered would hold the land until the end of time. Before the coming of the Normans in 1066, individuals were known in their small villages by their first, and only, names, or possibly by their nicknames. 

Mediaeval arrowsmith or fletcher,
both subsequent surnames

Very gradually, the 

population grew; people moved beyond villages and small towns, and more than the one name to distinguish one man from another, became essential. This social movement was slowly developing before the Normans invaded and within two years after the Norman conquest, the demands of the Domesday Book speeded up the process and it became imperative for each person to have a second name, with fines of property and belongings to enforce the law, involved. People had to supply an individual second name and many simply chose what was familiar to them; which family they belonged to; where they lived; what they did; personal characteristics or achievements. SO the first surnames as such in England were ‘John, son of Thomas’; ‘Peter the baker’. As time went on, these identifying second names were slightly shortened and surnames began to emerge, such as Peter Baker; John Thompson. The most common surname actually became Smith from the highly visible occupational names such as Blacksmith although some ‘Smith’ names remained entire as in my mother’s maiden name of Arrowsmith.

David Beckham whose mediaeval
forebears must have hailed from
the Norfolk village!

There were other forms of surnames based on

West Beckham
 village sign

a) Location of birth, e.g. Beckham in Norfolk.

b) Personal characteristics, e.g. Brown from brown hair; Black from black hair; Redhead from red hair; White from pale complexion. Others were statements of the obvious:  Fairchild; Armstrong;  Goodbody.

c) Patronage, e.g. Hickman from Hick’s man.

d) Estate, e.g. Windsor; Cavendish.

Many surnames related to the male lineage and family roots. The surname of Adkins means Adam’s family and names ending with ‘cock’ usually indicate ‘son of’. Adcock is Adam’s son; Alcock is Allen’s son. The word ‘cock’ is an Old English ‘tap’ and to have a son was of the utmost importance in Anglo-Saxon society; thus, when a baby was born, everyone quickly looked to see it it had ‘a little tap’ to check if it was a  boy.

The oldest recorded English surname is 'Hatt'; it is from East Anglia and indicates a hat-maker

Mediaeval hat-maker

In Bury, in the mediaeval grid, there is a Hatter Street. Hatt was an Anglo-Saxon family surname, mentioned in a Norman transcript and identified as a regular name throughout the region. Over subsequent centuries, surnames were registered in a variety of official documents such as the Hundred Rolls, the Assize Courts, land transactions, Royal Charters and so on. But it was the ever-inventive Normans who brought over the idea of hereditary surnames through their hereditary tax system which rewarded those who made wills indicating the family’s intentions regarding land and other possessions. Although not legally required, it paid the Anglo-Saxons to will anything they owned to their offspring otherwise, the government was entitled by law, to snatch most of it. And so this process focussed on the necessity of hereditary surnames. Two centuries later, the poll tax, first levied in 1275 and continuing under different names until the 17th century, taxed people a percentage of the assessed value of their movable goods. The sweep of history continued its demands!

Rose and Crown, Snettisham

But, to return to the splendidly-named Sneezums. The place name Sneezum comes from a local pronunciation of Snettisham in Norfolk. Recorded as Snetesham in 1086, probably deriving from an Old English personal name, ‘belonging to ‘Sneti’ or ‘Snaetes’ with the addition of ‘ham’, Old English ‘village homestead’. The name translates literally as ‘Snipe’s Farm’ from the Old English ‘snite ham’ and almost certainly is a reference to an area where snipe abounded. The first recorded spelling of the family name is that of Richard de Snetesham, dated 1161, in the pipe rolls of the county of Norfolk during the reign of Henry 11, 1154-1189. Various spellings of the name Snettisham, Stnetsham, Sneezum, Sneezam, Snesham, Sneitisham, Snetsham and Sneegum, are scattered through different manuscripts and documents, with instances of two different versions in the one script! In fact the surname is descended from the tenant of the lands of Snettisham, William de Warrene who was under-tenant to the Bishop of Bayeux, all recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.This large and important village contained 7 mills, 3 fisheries and 440 sheep.

Curiously, although this is one of the earliest surnames recorded, there is little mention in official documents of Sneezum or its equivalents, with a notable scarcity in Norfolk, between the 12^th and 18^th centuries although we do have a John Sneezham recorded at Castle Hedingham Independent Church in Essex as patriarch of a large family and his son, Jos Sneezam, as having married Emma Staples at Mundon in Essex on December 18^th 1830 with grandson, Jos Sneezam, being christened a year later. Between 1861 and 1891, the Sneezum family name was found in both England and Scotland and by 1891, Suffolk had 23 Sneezum families which was roughly 42% of all Sneezums recorded in the UK at that time.

As this little research was prompted by news of the intended closure of Sneezum's in Bury, we  must

Sneezums, Bury St Edmunds

 mention the relatively modern family references too. The Sneezums ran pawnbroker shops in Ipswich for over a century from the 19th to the 20th. In 1925 there were four members of the family working in Ipswich as pawnbrokers at different sites: Arthur in Norwich Road; Raymond in Elm Street; William at 14-20 Fore Street and Henry at 89-91 Fore Street. Below are three paintings of Sneezum premises in Ipswich by William John Leggett (1856-1936) although none of the ‘fine house close to the church of St Mary-at-Quay’ where this well-known Ipswich family lived. Their businesses eventually included jewellery, pawnbroker’s, clothier’s, cameras, sports gear, bicycles and fireworks! By the 1940s, pawnbroking was largely a thing of the past and the Sneezums moved up-market as jewellers and goldsmiths. And it was in the 1950s that Henry and Raymond became dealers in cameras, photographic equipment, sports outfitters and dealers in tools and musical instruments.

Fore Street, Ipswich
Painting of a Sneezum's branch in Ipswich by
William John Leggett. 1856-1936

A Second Sneezum's in Ipswich by Leggett

A third Leggett painting of another Sneezum's store
in Ipswich

Post Script
To underline the 'sweep of history' proposition, this is a 
photo of the Poll Tax riots in 1990 in protest against
the unfair imposition by Maggie Thatcher.

A Potted History of Chocolate

 

 

 

Chocolate was discovered, or perhaps, developed by the Olmec in what is today south-east Mexico, and their word, ‘kakawa’ gave us our word, ‘cacao’. Chocolate beans are the seeds of the cacao tree. The Mayans in the central South American rainforests 'inherited' from the Olmec their knowledge ofchocolate and the earliest archaeological evidence of cacao use dates back to almost 3500 BCE in sitesrelated to the Mayo-Chinchipe culture in modern-day Ecuador, although the generally accepted date for the beginning of the history of chocolate is around 1000 BCE when the cacao trees grew wild.  

Mayan farmer with his precious
chocolate implements

The Maya, the first civilisation to include ‘cacao’ in its hieroglyphics, used their cherished chocolate in official ceremonies and religious rituals such as community and religious feasts, weddings, funerals, and also for medical purposes. Both the cocoa and its associated vessels and tools were considered societally precious gifts and objects, so important that cocoa was only allowed for elite male consumption as the stimulating effects of drinking it were considered unsuitable for commoners, women and children. When drunk by the elite at banquets, chocolate was always served at the end of the meal as a digestif.

Achieving the highly-prized
'brown foam''

The Aztecs, following the Mayans, inherited a rich legacy of chocolate-making and consumption from them and other Meso-American societies, and considered their chocolate as gifts from the gods, one of their most precious drinks, luxurious and sensuous, fit only for the elite such as royalty, nobility, priests and the long-distance traders, the pochteca, who were among the society’s aristocrats. Commoners who managed to consume chocolate, would face execution. Cacao had to be transported into central Aztec land instead of grown there, because of the prevalence of seasonal frosts and the pochteca transported cacao across swathes of Aztec territory, carrying 24,000 beans weighing 50/60 pounds on their backs. Most of the beans were imported from Soconusco, conquered by the Aztecs for its cacao; the conquered inhabitants were then required to pay tribute to the Aztec conquerors in cacao. An exception to the ‘no commoners’ rule, was soldiers for whom chocolate ‘pellets’ or wafers formed from ground chocolate, were included in their rations. The Aztecs also offered their chocolate as tributes to the gods whence originated this divine substance.

To make chocolate, the beans were fermented, dried and roasted. The Mayans removed the husks, and pounded the nibs into a paste, with stones [metate] ground against a stone surface [mano] built over a fire. This paste was hardened into solid chunks which were broken up and mixed with water and other ingredients for added flavour, such as flowers, chilli, honey and vanilla, for drinking. When this liquid was heated, a fat called ‘cocoa butter’ rose to the surface and was skimmed off. Before serving, the liquid chocolate was poured between vessels from a height to generate brown foam, an effect believed highly desirable, then some cacao paste was added in an emulsifying process. To determine if the chocolate was high quality, the darkness of the brown foam, the colour of the bubbles and the aroma as well as the actual flavour of the liquid, were considered very important.

Pedro de Alvarado, stylish conquistador, 
by Tomas Povedana

The Spanish conquistadors began to invade South America as early as 1517-19 and waged war on the Aztecs for almost two centuries, until 1697. During this prolonged conflict, Spanish settlers gradually arrived and the knowledge of chocolate and its value as drink and food, was gradually dispersed among them and by association, their compatriots in Spain. It was the Spanish conquistadors who disclosed that the Aztecs used the coffee bean as currency and noted in 1545 that 30 cacao beans could buy a small rabbit; one could buy a large tomato and one hundred could purchase a turkey hen. It was claimed that the stores of Aztec royalty held massive amounts of cacao beans as a treasury.

Christopher Columbus and a replica of one of
his three ships which set sail from Spain in 1502

Even earlier than the arrival of the conquistadors, Columbus and his crew captured a Mayan trading ship off the coast of Southern America in 1502 and they encountered cacao for the first time; he reputedly found the taste, bitter. He assumed the beans were a type of almonds and shipped them back, unknowingly to Spain. Hernan Cortes tried the cacao drink in 1544 and sent the beans back to Spain where his contemporaries too were rather wary of the bitterness of cocoa and added sugar. It was first introduced to the Spanish court where, mixed with sugar, honey, and vanilla, it became the fashionable drink for aristocratic families, 

The Spaniards kept their delicious discovery a secret from the rest of Europe for nearly a century but due to the colonial expansion of the Spaniards and Portuguese, and later the Dutch, chocolate did eventually reach Europe becoming a fad which swept through the continent. In a slight echo of the Mayans' restricted social availability of cacao, only the European nobility and elite could afford the beverage which used two very expensive imports: cacao and sugar! It is interesting to note that although chocolate was all the rage in Europe, it remained only a drink until the 1800’s when the technology of the industrial revolution helped transform chocolate from liquid form into solid bars and mass production made the delicacy affordable to the masses. Spain was one of the countries at the forefront of this industrialization and chocolate has been an important part of their culture and economy for centuries. 

Hot chocolate showed up in a painting for the first time in the 17th century. Here we can see Infanta Maria Josefa of Spain, daughter of the Spanish King Charles III, portrayed with her two favourite things: her puppy, and a fashionable cup of hot chocolate.

Below is a small cavalcade of chocolate-related portraits giving a nod to the centuries-old love affair of Europe and chocolate:

                       Ca'  Rezzonico. 

               La Cioccalato del Mattino

Pietro Longhi

Hot Chocolate
Raimondo Delgrado

 

La Chocolatiere
Jean-Etienne Liotard 1754

Edwardian advertisement

Advertisement 1904

Fry's famous advertisement . Early 20th century

Spanish menu board, Costa del Sol
Contemporary.

Advertising postcard 1910

Cacao in transit; Ivory Coast

Latin America is still known for its high quality chocolate and diverse flavours. In 2022, the regions produced over a million metric tons of cocoa beans with South America producing about 87% of the total. Ecuador is the leading producer in the region and was acknowledged as among the top cocoa prodiucers worldwide on 26th June 2024.

Aftertaste:

The reason for this potted history of chocolate is simply that I recently overheard a small child asking his mother in Abbeygate Street, 'Has chocolate always been here?' Even for a curious toddler, this was a profound query! And I sympathised with the mother's vague assurances that she thought it probably had as I began to wonder if indeed chocolate HAD always been around. I now notice from my small research that there is even a number of books on the topic covering around 1000 years of history. Which is as near to dammit to 'always'.

Research.

The Commandant's Shadow

 

Hoess was much admired by other top Nazis for his
comprehensive establishment of Auschwitz and for his
design of a highly efficient system of annihilation.

Rudolph Hoess
Commandant of Auschwitz 1942-1945
Loving father of five children.

 

I was hugely impressed with The Zone of Interest [see Blog. Feb 21] and now, similarly, with the recently-issued The Commandant’s Shadow, about the same family and the same place. This second film, a documentary, reveals much more to the viewer than its earlier companion piece. I have long been fascinated by the Holocaust and have read widely on it. But these two films investigating the Hoess family are engrossing, particularly The Commandant’s Shadow based as it is on on interviews and exchanges with Hans-Jurgen Hoess, son of Rudolph Hoess, camp commandant of Auschwitz who was responsible for the murder of over 1 million Jews during WW2. In fact, four important people are mainly portrayed in this latest film; two Jews and two Germans though only one of each couple experienced Auschwitz, albeit in different ways. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a Jewish cellist and Holocaust survivor, now 98 and Hans Jurgen Hoess who lived an idyllic family life in the large house adjoining the Auschwitz camp barbed wire; her daughter, Maya, a therapist who seems deeply affected by her mother’s trauma, and Kai Hoess, the grandson, now a Christian pastor living in southern Germany but who works with American military personnel, speaks English with a pronounced American accent and is seen preaching in the American Bible-belt traditional manner. The younger sister of Hans-Jurgen [young daughter of the Commandant] is also portrayed, an early shot of her in her youth as a Balenciaga model showing her striking beauty. Her brother is shown visiting her in her home in Washington but she, always known at Puppi, has absolutely no interest in confronting the past and is dismissive of the subject.

Cellist and Holocaust survivor, 
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch age 98

Left to right: Anita L-W, daughter Maya, Kai Hoess,
grandson, Hans-Jurgen Hoess, son.
[Still from the film.]

Hans-Jurgen Hoess, like his younger sister Brigitte [Puppi], adamantly refuses to accept the actuality of their early Edenic home, fondly reminiscing about his lovely, idyllic childhood in Auschwitz, horrified to be told that it was next-door to a huge killing machine which gassed and burned over 1 million Jews, on the orders of their beloved father while their equally-adored mother turned away. The living contra-evidence comes in the inescapable experiences of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch whose parents died in a concentration camp, while her cellist skills consigned her to the Auschwitz orchestra assigned to the death marches but enabled her, by chance, to live. Both Hoess grandson, Kai, and Lasker-Wallfisch daughter, Maya, pressure the frail, 87 year old Hans-Jurgen to confront his family’s complicity but he wants to resist the shocking enormity of it all.

Four of the five Hoess children in their
beautiful garden

The documentary suggests that trauma and intense pain are passed on from one generation to the next and presents the Jewish therapist daughter as deeply affected by past events while her mother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is seen as astonishingly tough and unsentimental, qualities which have no doubt contributed to her survival during the war and afterwards. I was greatly impressed with Anita’s vibrant good health and composure in the documentary; her strength, fortitude and determination leap off the screen but these may also be qualities which cannot always be easy for family to live with. She declares that she finds it difficult to empathise with her daughter who is busily applying for a German passport and planning to live in Germany, to her mother’s mystification. Daughter Maya is much more fragile in spirit than her doughty mother. Their meeting with the two Hoess men, in Lasker-Wallfisch’s own home, shows both Hoess men as quiet and thoughtful; full of contrition and regret after their confrontation with past events. And for them, the encounter may have been painfully healing; perhaps also for the old lady but less so for her daughter. The extraordinary Lasker-Wallfisch is stunning in her courage, tenacity and resolute survival; she undoubtedly and intuitively knows, and accepts. that people believe what they are told and do what they do to protect their inner selves. Her [only] meeting with Hans Jurgen presents a remarkable conversation made powerful by its understatement.  

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and daughter Maya Joseph-Wallfisch

Anita's father, Dr Alfons Lasker, a lawyer, won the Iron Cross
in WW1; Mother, Edith, was a talented violinist. They died
in Isbica, concentration camp in Poland, in 1942.
Anita entered Auschwitz in 1943; was liberated from Bergen-Belsen, April 15, 1945.
She co-founded the London  English Chamber Orchestra in 1948.
Long association with the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Have Grievance: Will Travel

 

Prolonged civil unrest in several U.K. cities

This past week I have seen fleeting shots on my Ipad, of criminally-inclined mobs attacking the police, people’s homes, gardens, cars, supermarkets, municipal areas and town centres. The sustained devastation left in their wake is often dealt with on the following day as far as is humanly possible, by concerned citizens who live in the areas, or houses attacked. They are furious at the unprovoked and mindless destruction wreaked on their neighbourhood, and their complete incomprehension of it all is plain to see. It is always accompanied by the refrain that the destructors were not local but had travelled to enable them to form a part of a mob bent on causing mayhem.

'Tommy Robinson' aka Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon
Fled Britain in June, just before his court case was due. 
Despite claims of bankruptcy, now in 5 star hotel in Cyprus
from where he is orchestrating riots in UK.
Reinstated on to Twitter/X by Elon Musk.
1.2 billion accessed his Twitter account during August.

But why? These mini-riots are not brief sudden flare-ups in a drunken town centre on a Saturday night. The gathering is planned; it is sustained; publicity for it is repeated night after night on Social Media, over a week or more; support is initially sought through incitement on Social Media where feelings of resentment and grievance are stoked with misinformation and apparently irresistible invitations to join in the ‘fun’. The participants make the effort to travel to what is an exciting event offering an unrivalled, illegal opportunity to nurture grievances, attack the police and indulge in racism.

Confrontation

Police responses have been robust in the face of crowds, intent upon municipal destruction but particularly keen to attack them, with many police and their dogs injured and hospitalised. The other particular butt of violence has been Muslims, brown people, their homes and cars, with rioters in at least one city setting up ‘race’ check points for vehicles with only whites allowed to pass. This is appalling to bleeding heart liberals like yours truly, but     but that this breakdown may start to be considered the normal development in reaction to societal problems, is                                                                               incredibly worrying.                                                                                                          

Police and rioters in action

It is relatively straightforward to identify possible causes but rather harder to design systems to start to rectify and re-balance. Certainly, these far right riots are an indication of a deep malaise in our society [though not a sign we are heading for a civil war as suggested by Elon Musk on Twitter/X] Democratic electoral reform such as Proportional Representation [See blog of July 11] would go some distance towards beginning the move of the population to viewing Parliament as a legitimate and representative chamber in which to discuss and resolve national difficulties. But the road to building a more cohesive society; addressing economic and social inequalities; redesigning national education to enhance the lives of all children; will be long and tortuous. Although the unrest is fomented by fake news, it has, nonetheless, a deep sense of real resentment au fond.

Boarding up against further expected violence.
London 6/08/2024

In the meantime intentionally harsh sentences are beginning to be used as a deterrent. As the mobs seem to include a worrying proportion of very young people, the real threat of prison/ confinement may well influence teenagers acting thoughtlessly as they join in the crowd-thrill of aping racists and criminals. I should add, in a politically-incorrect footnote, that the societal breakdown causes as listed by Tommy Robinson, closely mirror my suggestions above. 

Tik Tok

 

Wind Beneath His Wings

 

Seconds after.
T-Shirts were quickly available in China bearing this emblem.

 

 A very interesting piece in the New Statesman [19-25 July, 2024,] by Katie Stallard with the sub-title

Ardent admirer.

Mystifying.

Don Junior toes the line. 

America peers into the abyss appeared on cue! Written soon after the worst sniper in the world narrowly missed Trump’s head and pierced his outer ear at a Republican campaign rally in Pennsylvania on 13 July. This intervention was unplanned but morphed into amazingly effective and spontaneous political theatre and I marvelled at the man; he didn’t collapse to the ground but rather descended to his knees, quickly rising defiantly to his full height [with help from his FBI minders], with a bright blue sky above and a billowing American flag conveniently nearby, holding up his fist and mouthing, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Stunned by the near-miss assassination attempt, underlined by the dramatic blood trickle down Trump’s face, the crowd went wild with worship. Cynics might briefly wonder if Trump had paid the sniper in a dramatic publicity campaign manoeuvre because the result was electrifying. Within nanoseconds Trump, the supreme narcissist bred for nothing but to take whatever he wanted in life, and with 34 felony counts [among others] of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star, was utterly transformed in the eyes of the crowd. He became a preacher; a prophet; a saviour. The man without morals or standards, was confirmed as leader of a cult saluted by millions of adoring followers.

Mark Watts' cartoon in New Statesman
Stallard article.

“Trump’s political skill has long been his instinctive grasp of the potency of resentment".  [New Statesman Stallard article on Trump.] This billionaire son of a wealthy family with few apparent intellectual skills, presents himself as the underdog fighting for the downtrodden masses against the deep state. “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” This language seems to say a lot about the American audiences too; surely no British audience could have heard such nonsense without wretching! And these audiences are not crackpot splinter groups with axes to grind; they are average citizens who seem to see nothing strange about Trump’s bizarre ‘saviour’ claims; indeed, who revel in his promises and admire him genuinely and deeply. They clearly do not notice, or intuit, his questionable behaviour or his worrying, even menacing, character. As suggested in The Daily Beast: “ For Trump, facts don’t matter, slogans suffice, truth is irrelevant.” But the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, popularly elected holder in a very important political arena, said, ”He is indomitable.” Roger Marshall, a Republican senator from Kansas, in otherwise apparent sound mind, gushed, “God is not through with Donald Trump yet. He’s here to lead us, and we’re here to put wind beneath his wings.” This mixture of grievance and fervent quasi-religious belief is potent and frightening while being undeniably powerful.

J.D. Vance
Born into an impoverished family
in Ohio; wrote best-selling
Hillbilly Elegy.
Successful career as investment
banker; became a Senator; now
Republican Vice-Presidential candidate
the least qualified ever.
In 2016 described Trump as like Hitler
and as a reprehensible idiot.
His opinion has now moved  into  line with
that of Trump whom he now admires
and aspires to emulate.
This is a man in transition.

Admittedly, I do not entirely understand the American electoral system. There is a popular vote and the electoral college. Hilary Clinton won two million more people’s votes than the Donald in 2019 but lost in the electoral college count. Opinions I have read suggest that a relatively few hundred thousand votes will decide the ‘24 election in just three swing states; Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. I remain puzzled but then, Britain has its own electoral systemic problems too! The current political U.S. landscape suggests Trump has almost equal voter numbers of those who worship and those who detest. And he does raise strong feelings on both sides. But America is a violent country contrary to Joe Biden’s opinion and there are more guns than people. His appointment of J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential pick, does not bode well for a peaceful atmosphere; Vance, by nature and action, inclined to Trumpian pronouncements, will surely enthuse and extend the M.A.G.A movement. Does he share the malign vengeance inclinations of the man himself? Possibly, but I would not be surprised if he manages to deepen the malevolent divide in American society which already benefits his boss. Certainly, if Harris wins, as the Grown-ups hope, the transition will not be without incident!