Talk:Earl

Split article?

It seems to me that using this article to discuss both British earls and Scandinavian jarls is not best practice. Besides etymology, the two titles don't seem to be related at all. Does any one else think it would be better to move the Scandinavian section back to Jarl (title), which currently redirects here? Ltwin (talk) 01:50, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Berig, who merged them. For myself, I would support a split. I can't see a reason to merge them beyond linguistics. Srnec (talk) 02:04, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• Split. See the discussion (or lack of it) back in 07/08. It doesn't look right for the article now. Johnbod (talk) 02:34, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
• Split As far as I can see, these are separate titles that aren't related. Alvaldi (talk) 10:42, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
• Split - this seems to have been someone assuming they’re the same thing because they’re cognates. Theknightwho (talk) 11:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
• Split No reason for them to have been merged in the first place, bad move.★Trekker (talk) 12:08, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, earl is the most common English form of jarl, simply because during the Viking Age they were the same title, and after the Viking age the title jarl disappeared in Scandinavia. I give you examples from Google scholar:
  • "Danish earl" has 168 hits, while "Danish jarl" has 103 hits
  • "Norwegian earl" has 157 hits, while "Norwegian jarl" has 109 hits.
  • "Swedish earl" has 51 hits while "Swedish jarl" has 41 hits.

There is a reason why the the articles were merged, and it is WP:COMMONNAME. Even in the tv series Vikings, the jarls are called earls. --Berig (talk) 14:25, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

About 8 of the first ten are like: "Siward is a well-attested historical figure, Parker notes, a Danish earl of southern Northumbria who first appears in English sources in 1033". WP:COMMONNAME is about article titles, not their contents. it is not true that "after the Viking age the title jarl disappeared in Scandinavia." According to the article it was used in all Scandi countries for some time after. Johnbod (talk) 15:08, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it disappeared during the Middle Ages, after the Viking Age. There were no Swedish earls in England, but still "Swedish earl" is preferred to "Swedish jarl" according to Google scholar.--Berig (talk) 15:13, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

A very long time after the Viking Age in several cases! Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Right, but "Swedish earl" also includes results like this one[1] and this one[2] which are actually using "earl" as a translation of greve "count", as they were of equivalent rank in the early modern period. Theknightwho (talk) 15:44, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME isn't applicable in this case as the discussion isn't about what this article should be titled. The discussion is about whether the UK and Scandinavian terms refer to the same thing. You are free to argue that the Scandinavian term should be at e.g. Earl (Scandinavian title), but it isn't an argument against the proposed split. Did you really just propose we use a drama TV series as part of the basis for decisions on Wikipedia? – Elisson • T • C • 15:12, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

No, I actually suggested we use Google scholar. I thought mentioning the tv series was relevant because of all the people who may want to find out about "Viking earls".--Berig (talk) 15:17, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Which is why there are things like hatnotes solving such issues. – Elisson • T • C • 16:00, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• Split, separate titles without any relation except a common etymology. Checked four different Swedish encyclopedias (Nationalencyclopedin, Nordisk Familjebok 2nd ed, Bonniers Lexicon, and Svensk Uppslagsbok) and a dictionary (SAOB). All five have separate definitions of "earl" and "jarl", while for titles like "duke" (if included at all) they just define it as the English name of the Swedish equivalent title ("hertig"), point to the article of the Swedish title, point to an article on English peerage, etc. – Elisson • T • C • 15:12, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

This is because after the Viking Age, the english earl came to correspond to Scandinavian title for duke, but that is not relevant for the Viking Age.--Berig (talk) 15:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand your argument (if that was one). Please clarify why you believe the English "earl" and Scandinavian "jarl" (sometimes translated to "earl") refers to the same thing. – Elisson • T • C • 15:29, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you should consult some of these articles. From the tone of your question, you seem to consider me delusional.--Berig (talk) 15:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't really need to consult further material, as I've provided relevant sources that treat "earl" and "jarl" as different subjects. So it's more up to you to provide arguments for the opposite. I like the earlier link you provided but removed ([3]) which clearly uses "jarl" for the Scandinavian title, and "earl" for the UK title, and provides a balanced view that researchers by routine uses "earl" for "jarl" without fully understanding the differences, while still saying there of course are similarities. I absolutely do not consider you delusional, but you have yet to provide any relevant argument for not splitting the Scandinavian title to a separate article. – Elisson • T • C • 15:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course jarl can have an article on its own, but having written 100s of articles on WP, I have come to the conclusion that if a lot of people are going to search for earl instead of jarl, it is better to have jarl as a sub-entry than as a stub, especially since they were two forms of the same word in two rather mutually intellible languages, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse. Moreover, considering the fact that parts of England were ruled by Scandinavians such as the jarl/earl Eiríkr Hákonarson there is of course some fluidity and identity between the terms here.--Berig (talk) 16:12, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

If they of course can have articles on their own, why !vote oppose? As I said in another comment, hatnotes (or disambiguation pages) exist to help users find what they are looking for when different subjects have identical or near identical names. – Elisson • T • C • 16:21, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Because, jarl mostly belongs to a Viking Age context, where it is often equated to its cognate earl, and in that context I seem to be a lumper while you appear to be a splitter.--Berig (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

BTW, considering the amount of work I have invested on Viking Age content here on WP, I really wonder who is going to care for the quality of such a jarl article. There are preciously few good content writers on Viking Age articles here on English WP, and judging from your questions above you don't seem to consider me to be among them.--Berig (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Can you please stick to the question in hand? Neither the maintenance of a separate article (how would it be different from maintaining the current content of this article), nor my opinion of your Viking age article writing skills are what is being discussed (I have no opinion on that). – Elisson • T • C • 21:51, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

(e/c)In the immediate post-Danish conquest period there were earls and ealdormen with overlapping jurisdictions, and hence different roles, and 'earl' was at least somewhat analogous to 'jarl' (hence the etymology); by the immediate pre-Norman period, 'earl' designated the shire-level administrative role formerly fulfilled by ealdormen; later, with the establishment of a parliamentary role and greater social statification, it transitioned again, eventually becoming just a naked title with no administrative responsibilities, a hereditary status symbol of political power alone. Certainly in the last phase, earls were not the same as the Scandinavian jarls of the Viking era, but they also weren't the same as English earls of the Viking era, and I am not sure that in the first phase the two weren't completely indistinguishable. Agricolae (talk) 16:16, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Exactly, good comment, Agricolae.--Berig (talk) 16:18, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Something none of us seem to have spotted is that there is also an article called Swedish jarls, which currently acts as a quasi-article for the title "jarl" in general. Theknightwho (talk) 22:13, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's awkward. This is not a very well-written article, defining 'jarl' in the introductory sentence simply as a title sometimes held by families who would later become royal families, as if there was some sort of predestination involved, and also mentioning that, by the way, there were also Jarls at Novgorod, in Icelandic sagas, and even lists a Sicilian monarch as a jarl. Whatever disposition is made over the jarl/earl question, there is not enough inherently unique about Swedish jarls that requires a nation-specific article separate from wherever Danish, Norwegian, etc. jarls are to be covered. Agricolae (talk) 08:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that, but it could I suppose be merged to the general Scandinavian one when that is split off from here. Personally I'd just leave it, linking and rewriting the lead as necessary. Johnbod (talk) 14:24, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

It just doesn't have enough Sweden-specific content to justify its own article distinct from the coverage of 'jarl'. The only truly Sweden-specifc material in the whole article is one sentence about in Sweden the title was replaced by Duke, three Swedish jarldoms given as examples in part of a sentence that also mentions Norway, and a list. Everything else is truly generic (the etymology), equally descriptive of Jarl in other places - that the title was borne by people whose families later became kings (e.g. Ulf Jarl of Denmark) or that they were often de facto kings (the Norwegian Jarls of Hlade) - or explicitlay about non-Swedish jarls. Any time two simple sentences would cover the entirety of a page's topic-specific prose, that is an unnecessary fork. Agricolae (talk) 17:00, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Most of the screen space is taken up by lists of holders of the title, & "in popular culture". That all seems Sweden-specific to me. Johnbod (talk) 01:06, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Not on my screen its not. Between the prose text and the massive infobox, and the non-Swedish entries in teh lists. As to the 'In Popular Culture', it is unclear to me that any of that is the least bit notable (and one of the entries seems to be of jarls of invented countries, not Swedish, so equally relevant - or equally trivial - to a generic Jarls page). Basically, a list of Swedish jarls is the only thing that remotely justifying a separate page, and while that might be the basis for a List of Swedish Jarls page, I would call WP:NOPAGE and put it on the Jarls page if this proposal ends up being accepted, and also list other Jarls (there seem to be few enough that a list would not overwhelm that page). Agricolae (talk) 16:45, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

• Split, some Jarls were independent princes just like kings of small kingdoms. Baxbox (talk) 08:51, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
• Split Jarls were in most of the Nordic countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. There is plenty of literature that was written in the very same era as the Jarls existed, so sources are not a problem. Earl is probably similar to Jarl, but they do definatly not have the same definition.

Side note: Support merging Swedish Jarls into Jarls.--Snævar (talk) 22:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Given that the overwhelming consensus is to split, I will go ahead and do that in a day or two if there are no more objections. Ltwin (talk) 03:02, 20 July 2022 (UTC)