Are you sure the word isn't smack, with an 'm'? A smack is still used in English for a small sailing vessel, with one or at most two masts, typically used in coastal trade or for near-shore fishing. The word is generally said to originate from the Low German 'schmacke' or the Dutch 'smak', both meaning simply a small ship.

However in the 12th century contemporary documents* do indeed refer to the ship that the Angevin kings habitually used to shuttle back and forth between their realms in England and France - the royal yacht as it were - as an 'esnecca'. This is, I'm fairly sure, simply a latinised form of the Old English word 'sneca or 'snaca', meaning a snake/serpent. Accordingly I wonder if the term didn't arise somewhat as a mirror of the Norse, 'drakkar' ie dragon, which was the common name for their sleek longships  ... only with esnecca/snake denoting something just a little bit smaller.

*Under Henry I and Henry II the post of 'nauclerus' (ie 'boat-captain') of the royal 'snecca' is recorded as being paid '12d per diem' - ie 12 pennies/a shilling a day: so quite a good wage when a typical labourer earned a penny a day and even a skilled artisan could only expect at most sixpence a day.

Have a look here, ComicMonster, and perhaps have a look at the parallel article in other languages - https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snekke

MM, according to this article the word does indeed seem to be related to Old English 'sneca' or 'snaca'.

'The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea', for esnecca, gives this:

"A long galley or longship, propelled by oar or sail, used by Scandinavian seamen as a warship probably between the 5th and 11th centuries. It is generally described as having twenty rowing benches, but occasionally up to 30 were fitted. The Scandinavian meaning of the word was snake, probably in reference to its extra length in comparison with the normal longship. No illustration of an esnecca is known to exist though it has been suggested that the ship incorporated in the seal of the city of Monmouth may be one.

Later, the word was used in England to describe a vessel belonging personally to the king in which he made voyages of state. Both Henry I and Henry II are recorded as having esneccas during the 12th century, the equivalent of a royal yacht."

Hi Meles meles, glad to know from you :-)

Your explanations are simply astonishing, and you were most probably right when you first suggested it could be "smack, with an 'm'". Looking that word in the English Wikipedia, you get the description of a small boat, that translates, according to the Spanish one, to "sumaca", which sounds pretty convincing to me.

I really appreciate your help in all those matters. I find it amazing.

All the best,

CM

Glad to be of help.

By the way here's the seal of the City of Monmouth which as mentioned above is thought to depict a medieval esnecca:



... although it doesn't look particularly 'snake-like' and to my inexpert eye it looks very much like any other contemporary depiction of a ship from about the 12th to 14th centuries.

I don't think I can be of help to ComicMonster but my late mother came from beside the sea in north Wales.  She had family that gained their living from the sea both from fishing and also some aunts and uncles who were stewards on ocean going vessels.  However I remember her asserting that the term "b*mboy"** could be used as somebody's job on a ship or boat and not simply in a pejorative way about a gay man.  I know there were "bumboats" - small boats that ferried items from shore to larger vessels off shore.

**Does anybody know what the job was - and I hope I haven't come across as precious by my use of an asterisk.

ComicMonster are you translating from Latin?  I wish I had worked harder at Latin now.  I think I said somewhere on the hallowed pages of Res Hist that I just about scraped a pass at O level - I had to do the unseen because I hadn't studied the set books attentively enough.  I don't know if nowadays The Aeniad or Caesar's Gallic Wars Book V would hold more interest if I revisited them but my 15-16 year old self yawned.

Hi, LadyinRetirement;
no, I am translating from English, it's just that sometimes there are captions or terms written in latin —which I also studied eons ago, and wasn't very good at neither. On the other hand, I really think you may find ejoyable texts and infos you thought boring some time ago. That's at least what has happened to me with history in general, which, well written, is just great, but was a mere (and horrible) collection of dates and kings to skip when in my teens.

Kind regards,

CM

Would not a bumboy be just a bumboat boy? So performing a function like 'Little Buttercup' who is described as 'A Bumboat Woman' in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, 'HMS Pinafore':



So someone supplying, to quote Winston Churchill, "rum, bum and baccy", though not generally the bum bit.
(That is actually a misquote as Churchill in fact described Royal Naval service as "all rum, sodomy and the lash", but the snappier "rum, bum and baccy", has become the most repeated one).

MM may be right about the above - usually the simple explanations are the most likely though those who like a fanciful conspiracy theory tend to disagree.

CM, yes the texts may seem more interesting now (though I'd probably cheat and read them in English translation).  I know my late mother said Caesar's books irritated her when she came across "Caesar hostes imperavit" - thought he was throwing his weight about and demanding hostages.  Of course, I knew that "hostes" was enemies and "obsides" was hostages - still probably in the original Caesar was probably demanding that the enemy give him hostages.

Meles meles wrote:

Glad to be of help.

By the way here's the seal of the City of Monmouth which as mentioned above is thought to depict a medieval esnecca:



... although it doesn't look particularly 'snake-like' and to my inexpert eye it looks very much like any other contemporary depiction of a ship from about the 12th to 14th centuries.

Meles meles,

as we from our national history are both used to the terms "snekke" from the Vikings and the medieval "kogge" in Bruges the terms "cogs" and "esneccas" are familiar overhere. And I think the one who wrote "snacks" had perhaps drank a bit too much beer (see my beer thread)
And definitely it is a kogge (cog) on your coin.
Did some quick research about "snekke" and "kogge" and especially "snekke" seems to not well know by google...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longship
http://www.nifterlaca.nl/read.php?3,5088,5142
https://www.gettyimages.be/detail/foto/viking-snekke-boats-in-oslo-stockfotos/501866390
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_(ship)

http://www.vikingskip.com/vikingshipclasses.htm


Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

Glad to be of help.

By the way here's the seal of the City of Monmouth which as mentioned above is thought to depict a medieval esnecca:



... although it doesn't look particularly 'snake-like' and to my inexpert eye it looks very much like any other contemporary depiction of a ship from about the 12th to 14th centuries.

Meles meles,

I don't kwow what happened now. I had a link incorporated, which said it wasn't allowed to use or something like that, about "viking snekke boats in Oslo" if you type it in google you will see it. And suddenly my message didn't appear anymore and only the URL of that page was shown and I couldn't do anyting anymore...had to close my computer and reopen...
That said I try again without the link:

We are used from our national history to the "Viking snekkes" plundering Ghent and all that, also the "kogge" from the Hansa league regurlarly in medieval Bruges...and the equivalents in English are in my opinion as you say "esnecca" (snekke from snake) (in our dialect we say "snekke" for "snake" Dutch: slang). I think that "snack" is a wrong interpretation in English.
And it is definitely a "kogge" on your coin.
From some quick research:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longship
http://www.nifterlaca.nl/read.php?3,5088,5142
http://www.vikingskip.com/vikingshipclasses.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_(ship)


Kind regards from Paul.

Indeed Paul, although I think there were some subtle differences between the various types of medieval ship. A kogge (cog in English) was flat-bottomed while another type of vessel, similar to the cog but with a round bottom, was called a 'hulk'. It is fairly definitely known what a hulk looked like by the ancient borough seal of the town of New Shoreham in Sussex (where I was born). The town was at one time sometimes known as 'Hulkesmouth' and around the edge of the seal (dating from 1295) is written "hoc hulci vigno vocor o's sic domini digno" - "By this sign of a hulc (hulk) I am called its Mouth which is a worthy name". A hulk therefore would seem to have had a strongly curved shape, a round bottom but no keel:



A Mediterranean development of the cog was the carrack (or nef in French), which was a larger vessel with a deeper rounded hull, 2 or even 3 masts, and was carvel-built (hull plunks were butted against each other) rather than clinker-built (hull plunks overlapping) which was how cogs and earlier Northern European longships were constructed. A carvel built hull was stronger allowing carracks to be larger and able to support more masts, and it was this sort of ship that was capable of carrying Columbus and his contemporaries all the way to the Americas or round Africa to India and the Far East.

A carrack as depicted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder circa 1558:

Meles meles,

indeed it is all as you say. To repeat that we in our national history  (first the Low Countries then the Spanish Netherlands due to our emperor Charles from Ghent) we saw them all...
First the snekke, then the kogge and the hulk, then the karveel and from that the kraak and for competition in the Mediterranean against the gallei (galley) the galjoen (galleon)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravel
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karveel_(scheepstype)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrack
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraak_(zeeschip)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleon
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galjoen_(schip)
and to fight the galley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley

Will add an addendum about Piet Hein steeling the silver from the galleons of the Spanish silverfleet sailing from America...hmm confiscating for the noble sake during the Dutch revolt against Philip II

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum about the capture of the silver of the Spanish galleons by Piet Hein...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Pieterszoon_Hein



And although we were in the time at the Spanish side in the Dutch revolt of the United Provinces, we had the song in our song curriculum in a Belgian school of the Fifties, but to be fair we had also South-African "Afrikaans" songs in our curriculum as "Mijn Sarie Mareis"
I am a bit like LiR, perhaps worser...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarie_Marais


And due to the wiki it was also sung on the British side in English...

And now I see for the first time in my life that it can come from an American civil war song:



Kind regards from Paul.