Stompin’ at the Savoy
When you are in Annecy, France you are in the department of Haute-Savoie, just above the department of Savoie. The counts of Savoy and the House of Savoy were a whole scene, and the Savoy is “a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps,” as Wiki tells us.
Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Valley in the east.
The Savoy does not include the city of Geneva itself. During an event known as the Escalade, in December 1602, the Savoyards attacked Geneva, but were repelled.
Druckgraphik. Am Rand der Text des Chanson(Supposedly) the late night cooks caught the sneaking Savoyards and dumped boiling pots of stew on them and alerted everybody.
Although the armed conflict actually took place after midnight, in the early morning on 12 December, celebrations and other commemorative activities are usually held on 11 December or the closest weekend. Celebrations include a large marmite (cauldron) made of chocolate and filled with marzipan vegetables and candies wrapped in the Geneva colours of red and gold… Teenagers tend to throw eggs, shaving cream, and flour at each other as part of the celebration. The high school students parade together by first going to “conquer” each other and end up in the central square of the old town after walking through the rues basses to the plaine de Plainpalais and back.
On the sleepless cook does history turn, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. So ended Savoyard expansion and stayed Geneva-ese indepenence.
The first count of Savoy was Humbert I:
Humbert is the progenitor of the dynasty known as the House of Savoy. The origins of this dynasty are unknown, but Humbert’s ancestors are variously said to have come from Saxony, Burgundy or Provence.
That’s as far back as we can get on Savoy. As Bob Dylan :
But that pedigree stuff, that only works so far. You can go back to the ten-hundreds, and people only had one name. Nobody’s gonna tell you they’re going to go back further than when people had one name.
In 1860 the Duchy of Savoy became part of France in a deal where France agreed to support unifying Italy. By then the House of Savoy was the royal family of Italy, and they kept on until 1946. Since then they’ve fallen rather hard, I recommend this wikpedia section, The House of Savoy Today. Vanity Fair article type stuff. Maybe Princess Vittoria is the current heiress, I dunno, it gets mixed up with the cousins. Suffice to say that the House of Savoy is at a low ebb in their thousand year journey.
The word Savoy associates in my mind to “Stompin at the Savoy” and The Savoy Hotel. How did this word spread?
Stompin’ at the Savoy took its name from the Savoy Ballroom, which was once at 596 Lenox Avenue in Harlem.
(those images from the Savoy Ballroom wiki)
That Savoy took its name from the famed London hotel:
Built by the impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte’s family[a] for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners.
(Then Ritz and Escoffier left in a scandal, they were stealing booze and semi-embezzling. Ritz of course would go on to have his own chain, that also generated music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNFffHQOXMc
)
The London hotel was called Savoy because it was on the location of the Savoy Palace. Eleanor of Provence married King Henry III in 1236. He was 28, she was maybe.
Wiki tells us:
she was very much hated by the Londoners. This was because she had brought many relatives with her to England in her retinue; these were known as “the Savoyards”, and they were given influential positions in the government and realm. On one occasion, Eleanor’s barge was attacked by angry Londoners who pelted her with stones, mud, pieces of paving, rotten eggs and vegetables.
One of these Savoyards was her uncle Peter, who was granted some land where he built Savoy Palace:
The Savoy was the most magnificent nobleman’s house in England. It was famous for its owner’s magnificent collection of tapestries, jewels, and other ornaments. Geoffrey Chaucer began writing The Canterbury Tales while working at the Savoy Palace as a clerk.
It was destroyed in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1351. Later on the site was built Savoy Hospital:
Later this area became a little precinct:
There was a chapel there, Savoy Chapel:
In 1912 it was the scene of a suffragette wedding between Victor and Una Duval. The wedding was attended by leading suffragettes and the wedding caused much debate because the bride refused to say “and obey”, despite the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And nearby D’oyly Carte built the Savoy Theatre and the Savoy Hotel.
And there we have some history of “Savoy” as a concept. Once again a cultural and historical puzzle that’s come up in our travels has been followed towards the source, with illuminating new stories and details that have enriched our experience of life. We’ve shared it with you, the reader, and hope you’ve found it edifying.
Let’s all listen to Stompin’ At The Savoy, we’ll go with the version by… Art Tatum:
