Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Egbert of Wessex

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 14:14, 17 September 2007.

Egbert of Wessex edit

Another Anglo-Saxon King, this time ninth century. Two for comparision: Ine of Wessex, who preceded Egbert by about 75 years, and Æthelbald of Mercia, whose reigns ends in the 750s. Thanks for all comments. Mike Christie (talk) 02:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Can you put some piece of information about his consort into either the box or the article? Or is it unknown? --HansHermans 02:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See the discussion on this on the talk page. The gist of it is that there is apparently a late manuscript that says something very obscure that has been interpreted in the past as referring to Egbert's consort, and which has apparently also been taken to refer to Redburga. None of the modern material I've looked at it even mentions this, and I strongly suspect this is outdated scholarship. I'd be more comfortable if I could find someone post-1950 who dismisses it in print, but I can't. So after some consultation with other editors I just cut it out (an earlier version had included her) as unreliable material. Mike Christie (talk) 03:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should the article mention that none of the primary documents tell of his consort? --HansHermans 04:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My preference would be not to do so, because there are a lot of things that the early sources leave out, and I don't see how we would choose what to include. For example, we don't know who his mother was, either; there are no sources for that. Is there some particular reason you feel his consort, or Redburga, is of interest? Mike Christie (talk) 12:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, just for consistency's purposes most royalty articles have details about the family. --HansHermans 18:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This is a well-written and informative article. Karanacs 13:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC) Comment Overall, I really like this article. I do have a few concerns that should be pretty easy for you to address. Karanacs 19:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lead
- ~~Per the MOS, if you only know the date of death, use Name (died <date>); no question marks for the birth year.~~
- ~~Additional spellings of names should be in bold instead of italics, I think (see WP:MOSBIO)~~
- ~~Be consistent in dates; in one instance the article includes a comma after a date ("In the 780s, he"), while in subsequent instances there is no comma ("In 825 he")~~
Political context and early life section
- The sentence on Charters in the first paragraph provides good information, but I don't think it flows that well. How about something along the lines of: ...Mercian overlordship. This is evidenced by Cynewulf's appearance on one of Offa's charters in 772. The charter, which granted land to Offa's followers or churchman, listed Cynewulf as the "King of the West Saxons. Although Cynewulf was defeated by Offa in battle in 799, he was not known to have acknowledged Offa as overlord. I would then make the next sentences a new paragraph.
- I would try to incoporate the marginal note about the genealogy into the rest of the sentence: In 784, a new king of Kent, Ealhmund, appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. According to a note in the margin, "this king Ealhmund was Egbert [of Wessex]'s father, Egbert was Aethlwulf's father."
- I would shorten the sentence about Ealhmund in the next paragraph to read: "Ealhmund does not appear to have long survived in power; there is no record of his activities after 784." It's not incredibly important in this article where else he was mentioned after you establish that he is Egbert's father.
~~Please wikilink full dates.~~
~~There are several instances in the footnotes where the article references a website. Please make sure that a publisher is included (not just as part of the title)~~

Karanacs 19:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All done except for the bit about charters. A comment in a previous FAC led me to add a similar sentence to Æthelbald of Mercia#Mercian dominance. I would like to retain some explanatory material about the charters in some form -- most people won't know what they are. The sentence you cut -- "Charters, which were documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen, and which were witnessed by the kings who had power to grant the land, can provide evidence of overlordship if, for example, a king's appearance on a charter is as a subregulus, or 'subking'" -- also provides a contrast to the fact the Cynewulf is recorded as "King of the West Saxons", not as a subregulus, which helps clarify the lack of evidence that Offa was ever his overlord. Let me know what you think: I feel some of this should be there. Mike Christie (talk) 03:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What if you just change the order of the sentences? After "Cynewulf appears as "King of the West Saxons" on a charter of Offa's in 772" put a full-stop, and then move the sentence about Charters just after it. That would make it flow a little better. Karanacs 15:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's how that reads:

"Cynewulf appears as "King of the West Saxons" on a charter of Offa's in 772. Charters, which were documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen, and which were witnessed by the kings who had power to grant the land, can provide evidence of overlordship if, for example, a king's appearance on a charter is as a subregulus, or "subking". Cynewulf was defeated by Offa in battle in 779 at Bensington, but there is nothing else to suggest Cynewulf was not his own master, and he is not known to have acknowledged Offa as overlord."

The sequence of argument in my mind is that there are two pieces of evidence regarding Cynewulf's relations with Offa: he witnesses a charter of Offa's, though as king, not subregulus; and he lost a battle to Offa. The reason for the sequence as I have it is that I think the charter should be mentioned before the battle since that's chronological, and the battle should not be mentioned in between the charter and the explanation of what a charter is, since the explanation should come just when necessary. I also want to mention the charter and battle together, since I want to give the reader the two pieces of evidence in a clear way, without dividing them with an explanatory sentence. Those constraints force a particular sentence sequence. I've had a go at restructuring the sentence so the explanation flows better, but I've left it in place before the chronological information. Does that improve things? Mike Christie (talk) 12:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds a lot better! Thanks! Karanacs 13:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support with a few fixesrecommended:
- Consider unlinking years in the infobox.
- In the infobox, "Æthelwulf" links 2 different pages
- Put a citation for "the rival, not the overlord, of the Kentish kings" (even if it just means duplicating Kirby 165)
- The paragraph on the three vs. thirteen confusion is unclear which is the error,and seems to start saying three is the error.
- The Hwicce mention could use a bit of explanation. Its unclear for someone who is not very familiar with the topic whether they are a gang, faction, tribe or military division.
- The repeated bit about Wulfred's coinage being stopped by Egbert feels clunkily disconnected: you don't expect it to come up after it's ben mentioned the first time.
Excellent work, as always. I can even hardly nitpick over the references. Circeus 00:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think everything's taken care of -- see what you think of the clarifications I put in for the "iii vs. xiii" and the Hwicce issues. On Wulfred, I decided to take out the first reference to the termination of his coinage, and merge the additional information about the property being confiscated with the second mention of the coinage, so there's no repetition any more. It's the same data being referred to -- in the sources, they use it for slightly different deductions, but I think it only needs to be mentioned once. Thanks for the helpful comments (and the compliment!), and for the support. Mike Christie (talk) 02:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, clearer now that both are possibilities, but the current most agreed consensus is that "iii" is an error. Right? Circeus 02:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes; and in fact it's stronger than that, as far as I can tell by scanning old books on Google Books; it seems the great majority of historians have settled on thirteen as the correct reading. Stenton's reputation is so high, though, that his dissent is worth noting, and there well may be others who have reservations about assuming the same error in every single version of the Chronicle. Mike Christie (talk) 13:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.