The Livery Newsletter and Gazette Issue 29 Summer 2018 | Page 34

Some intriguing moments from the long history
of tobacco and smoking The lunch was deliciously catered by Mark Grove
and his team at Cook & Butler and we cracked
along turn
at a to goodly
pace.
Our
were
With our 400th birthday coming up next year, our minds may
history.
Here
are guests
a few of
the admirably
more quirky
introduced
by
Liveryman
Fran
Morrison
and our
and intriguing moments from the long history of tobacco and smoking.
Principal Guest, Tim Wonnacott gave a generous and
very humorous reply to which I responded initially
drenching
poor
Tim in
a glass
of water - he was
Maya vase depicting a by
smoking
monkey,
possibly
a deity,
c. 800AD
very kind about it (sorry Tim!). I was very pleased
Tobacco only reached to Europe
after
Columbus
discovered
show off
the Christopher
newly found
Livery Grant
of Arms
the New World in 1492,
but
smoking
dates
back
further.
While
Native
and Letters Patent which have been missing for many
Americans had been years
smoking
tobacco
for centuries, sought
the ancient
- our
Clerk tenaciously
them Greek
out, and
historian Herodotus the
noted
that
some
Scythian
tribes
“drank
smoke”
from
new Immediate Past Master, Chris Allen, and
his a
bonfire, inhaling fumes
that
were Gower-Smith
possibly marijuana.
The Greek
physician
IPM,
Mark
have funded
a beautiful
re-
Hippocrates recommended
inhaling
smoke
for
‘female
diseases’,
and
the
presentation and they are now resplendent in frames
Roman author Pliny carved
the Elder
thought
inhaling
could
coughs.
with
tobacco
leaves smoke
(or close
to); cure
Sandra
also A
13th century Spanish located
poem even
refers
to
the
stimulating
effects
of
lavender
a huge banner not seen since 1985 and Angus
smoke. (Whatever turns you on, I guess!)
Menzies, Clerk to the Master Mariners and never shy
of a challenge
saw
it that
it was displayed
on the
One of Columbus’s sailors,
Rodrigo
de to
Jerez,
is credited
with bringing
Quarterdeck.
tobacco smoking to Europe, after locals in the Caribbean showed him
how to do it. Sadly, Whilst
things didn’t
well
for Rodrigo.
The Spanish
all this go
was
going
on, apparently
biblical-
Inquisition imprisoned
for seven were
years,
denounced
as a man
who
style him
downpours
being
had all over
London
“swallows fire, exhales
smoke, and
surely
possessed
by the
- oblivious
to all is that
drama
we ended
our devil”
lunch
and trooped back to the quarterdeck where Coffee,
Cigars, and Cognac awaited us (I did mention that
our Livery enjoyed dining on the High C’s..) and
which seemed to hit the mark – Liveryman Jemma
Jean Nicot & tobacco plant and leaf, 19th century photograph
Freeman had kindly provided the torpedo cigars
Nicotine - and the tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum - are and
named
had had them placed in souvenir tubes with our
after Jean Nicot, a French ambassador to Portugal in 1559. Crest emblazoned on it. Several of us also sported
Tobacco had arrived there from the New World, and Nicot a sent
limited edition Livery Smoking hat - originally
leaves and seeds to his bosses at the French court, with advice
conceived as a sort of shooting hat, it serves its
to use the herb as snuff. Catherine de Medici, mother of the
purpose so well as a “team” hat, that of the twenty
French king, decided tobacco had “marvellously cured” her ordered,
son’s but one remained by the close of the day!
headaches. Tobacco became known as ‘herbe de la Reine’ (the
Thank you to the Master Mariners for allowing us the
Queen’s herb) and botanists later
use of the venue, to Tim for being a perfect Principal
immortalised Nicot by naming the
Guest, and for everyone attending and giving my
plant Nicotiana.
year such a special start.
The Master
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