Talk:Clement of Llanthony/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 17:12, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Happy to take a look. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:12, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

• "Clement's cause of death is given as a stroke" Given by whom or what?
  • Basically, the ODNB says this .. .but doesn't say by whom. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• With you mentioning where he was in the list of priors of the various priories, I went looking for a list. Is it worth creating navboxes or succession boxes? I note that you have predecessors and successors only for one of the roles in the infobox, and neither are linked. Are they notable? If so, redlinks wouldn't hurt.
  • I am unsure about the notability of the predecessors and successors... and of the notability of a list of the priors for most of these...they are pretty obscure. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• "on Acts of the Apostles" Do we italicise books of the Bible? That doesn't look right to me. (Also Book of Revelation below.) Similar question for Augustianian Rule.
  • Geess... I had to go digging deep for this one: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Scripture but fixed. The Rule is a descrete work and should probably be italicized. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• "as works entitled De tribus in paenitentia consideranda and Unum ex quatuor.[2] The work De sex alis cherubin is also ascribed to him" What are these about? At the very least, could you include English translations of the titles? Same with others further down.
  • Urf. I'm hesitant to include translations because they'd either be Google translations or my own (inferior) translations, and thus OR. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• "This work, which was seen by John Leland, may have been confused by Leland with Clement's Unum instead." I am struggling to understand this sentence.
  • Basically, Leland is an antiquary who went around in the 15th century and wrote about manuscripts (and lots and lots and lots of other stuff). His descriptions of manuscripts can not always been matched up to what is still extant - sometimes this is because the manuscripts have since vanished, but other times because he gave such confused descriptions that we are unable to be sure what he meant. In this case, Leland describes a commentary on the Bible that was written by Clement. But it is either now lost or it's such a bad description that we can't be sure that Leland was describing a copy of the Unum. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• "Another possible work, but considered unlikely to have been Clement's work, is Meditationes de beata Virgine." How about "Another possible work of Clement's is Meditationes de beata Virgine. This attribution, however, is considered unlikely by [whoever]."
  • Well, I can't be sure that Sharpe (who calls it doubtful) isn't the only one ... it isn't always clear if Sharpe is basing his decisions on other scholars or on his own views. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• "Unum became a standard text on the Gospels in both medieval England and on the continent." Might this belong in the lead? I get the impression from my Googling that he was actually a very important author for centuries (even if basically forgotten today) - but I didn't really get this impression from the article until the last section.
  • Done. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Continuing from the above: I'm pleased to see an explanation of what the text is; might it be easier for readers if this text is provided when you first introduce the book? I.e., "book1, what book1 is, book2, what book2 is", rather than "book1, book2, possible book3, what book1 is".)
  • As I mention above, the sources don't translate or describe these in much detail - so the only work that gets much treatment is the Unum. I'm very very hesitant to use my own or machine translations ... medieval Latin differs from Classical Latin in a number of ways, and most machine translations will be based on classical Latin (and my own understanding of medieval Latin is .. beyond rusty). Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Similar with the extent to which these texts survive; I wonder whether it would be easier on the reader to go text-by-text, rather than including all of this information at the end. Though I'm less sure about this than I am about the separation between the introduction of his important work and the description of it. (Thinking aloud) Maybe the thing to do would be to discuss Unum, and then discuss the other works. Maybe you could even have two subsections. Like I say, just thinking aloud.
• "the basis for canons compiled" Could you provide a wikilink for what "canon" means in this context?
  • Done. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• "may be at Rouen" I assume this means Rouen Cathedral; wikilink?
  • No, actually not. In the municipal archives - Sharpe says "Rouen. Bibliotheque municipale", which I don't believe we have a wiki article on. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• I'm not going to comment on reference formatting at GAC, and all sources are suitably scholarly.
• I'm seeing lots of hits on Google Scholar; have you worked through them? He appears in the title of at least two published pieces: "Clement of Llanthony’s Gospel Harmony and Augustine’s De Consensu Evangelistarum", by Paul Smith, and "The Gospel Harmony of Clement of Llanthony", by J. Rendel Harris. I'm surprised these aren't cited.
  • Well the Harris is ... very ... arcane. It's very much focused on the scribal issues of particular manuscripts and the relationships of manuscripts. And it's pretty much large quotations and some speculation. Very little actual anaylsis of anything that relates to Clement ... I've read it in the past and just re-read it just in case. The other I've not been able to get a hold of - Brill is stingy. But based on the abstract and the title, it's does not appear to have much to relate in regards to Clement either (it seems that it's dealing with a rather obscure scholarly debate about two differing gospel harmony traditions). If this was an article on Clement's harmony, I'd expect to it to be cited, but given the journal its in and the abstract, I've not felt the need to spend 25 euros on it. If I was going for FA, I'd also be more worried about it - but I'm not planning on it for this article (I know my limits and works of medieval biblical exegesis and commentary are well into my "oh, by Venus' tits, no!!" territory. I'll do secular manuscripts and works, but not theological and biblical ... ugh.) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Hope this is helpful. Please double-check my edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:49, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

• I may get to some of this tonight during the game, but it may be Tuesday or Wednesday for some of the other stuff... I'm on the road with hubby and won't be home til Tuesday night... I wasn't really expecting folks to jump on my nominations THIS fast! Flattered, but yeah...Ealdgyth - Talk 20:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No hurry at all from my perspective. The review can stay open six months if it needs to. I have the Smith article - email me if you'd like to see it. (I feel your pain on Brill. I find the Philosophy Documentation Centre seems to exist solely to stop people from having access to journal articles...) Josh Milburn (talk) 20:47, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
    • I'll email when I get home that way it's on the home computer rather than the (crappy) laptop or (not crappy but not ideal) tablet. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:52, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
      • @J Milburn: Sent an email... did it get lost in the ether? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
        • @Ealdgyth: I didn't get anything. My email addresses are all over the web, so I don't mind saying them here; try both jmilburn02-at-qub.ac.uk and j.milburn-at-sheffield.ac.uk and at least one will reach me! Josh Milburn (talk) 14:48, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I've worked the Smith article bits into this article - there's a lot in there that is purely for the specialist (and someone who is VERY specialized at that.. yikes, my brain is mush after reading that...) Ealdgyth - Talk 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

OK, I'm happy enough with how the article is looking now. I think I might have approachedd this article a little differently, but it's naturally not my pace as a GA reviewer to tell you how to write the article. I'm happy enough to promote if you're happy with my most recent edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:37, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

That looks fine from my end. Sorry for the delay... stupid winter-crud! --Ealdgyth (talk) 15:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)