Wikipedia:Peer review/Ecclesiastical heraldry/archive1

Ecclesiastical heraldry

I hope to make this a good or featured article. At this point I have written 95% of the article and would like some new eyes to read it. Also, I have been unable to get the main book on the topic by Bruno Heim through interlibrary loan. Gimmetrow 22:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, AZ _t 01:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to address the issues typically brought up by automated suggestions and I'm not sure what else to do. I shortened one long caption. Should this go to WP:FAC ? Gimmetrow 20:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Some questions

I've reviewed this article per the FA nomination. Here are some concerns with the first few sections:

• "the application of distinct forms of heraldry" This seems a bit confusing and wordy. Is it an application of something or is it just heraldy? A type of heraldy? The word distinct could probably be cut. What are forms of heraldy?
• 2nd sentence uses "Church heraldry." Is this an alternative name? Should it be bolded as well in the first sentence? If it's a synonym, it shouldn't assume we no. If not, explain.
• Sentence 3 uses the phrase "the shield", apparently to refer to the coat of arms, but this is another synonym we haven't learned yet.
• "among Eastern churches the mantle or cloak is used in heraldry" do you mean "only" or in lieu of something else? I'm confused?
• "For the Church, the need for identification arose primarily with seals to mark documents" the need arose with seems like an awkward construction even though i take your meaning. could this be improved?
• "As secular heraldry developed, clergy imitated the noble coats of arms, but being non-combatants they replaced military elements with clerical elements." Imitated in what way? I'm not familiar. Don't just tell me what's different; what's the same? And is secular heraldry analogous to noble coat-of-arms?
• History jumps rather dramatically from the 16th century to 1905. Did anything happen in between? The 1905 sentence also seems a bit curt. How did this come about? Reactions? Anything else?
• "International custom and national law govern limited aspects of heraldry, but Church heraldry since 1960 depends on expert advice to follow established principles." I want more information here. What expert advice? What is expert advice? What principles? What customs? I'm a little lost. It sounds like the only time there was a formal set of coats of arms was between 1905-1960. But I had to reread a bit just to figure that out, and I'm not even sure if I'm right. Maybe a topic sentence at the start of the second paragraphy would help>?
• what is an "ecclesiastical armorist"?
• Citatation need for the first rule of heraldry. Also "A heraldic device must be recognizeable and distinguishable especially in battle."
• "or and argent" Might consider wikilinking these because it looks like 2 conjunctions next to each other. But your choice.

MarkBuckles 00:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe I have addressed these concerns, except the history issue (16th-20th C) which will take some time. Unfortunately you read the text just after I had made substantial additions to address the concerns of another reviewer, and before a copy-edit phase. On a couple specifics, an "armorist" is an officer of arms. I thought linking to rule of tincture was enough of a cite, as it is the first sentence of that article, but I changed and quoted from Heim. I've also tried to distinguish the shield from the entire achievement. The RCC used to register the achievement in a way similar to the official office of heraldry in the UK. The things around the shield were very tightly governed. Now that arms are no longer registered, much of that is up in the air, limited only by (where present) laws of particular countries. While the whole achievement is theoretically unregulated, the legacy of strict rules and a desire not to appear pretentious tend to keep the things around the shield in order; Heim and Selvester were concerned mainly with poor shield design. Gimmetrow 01:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right about the rule of tincture link; I just missed that somehow. So your call on that one, although it's usually better to error on the side of two many citations I think. My other visual error is that I read amorist instead of armorist. Makes more sense now. IMO, you could wikilink that one rather than parenthetically defining. Not sure, but you might want to define achievement a little earlier (and link if possible). It was never used in the sections I read and it seemes to be fundamental. It might make sections like this one easier to parse:

"The earliest seals bore a likeness of the owner of the seal, as did contemporary seals of the nobility with the shield included. Personal arms of bishops and abbots continued to be used after their deaths, gradually becoming an impersonal seal.<ref name="Rogers"/> Over time the seals of the nobility were reduced to just the shield."

This is supposed to be saying that seals started out just showing a person; secular seals would have a person with a shield. Over time the person disappared, the shield remained. Clergy adopted that style changing most everything but the shield. Gimmetrow 03:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding this sentence:

"For the Church, the things most needing identification were documents and buildings, whose origin and ownership was distinguished by seals. "

It's clear but it seems unscholarly in tone and a bit much. Would something like "The Church used seals to identify the origin and ownership of documents and buildings." still convey the same meaning?

Adjusted. Gimmetrow 03:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I also find this new sentence confusing:

"Ecclesiastical heraldry in the Church follows established heraldic customs in regard to composition and marshalling, but the Church also has an interest in avoiding pretentious clerics"

Firstly, because I'm not sure what the customs are or exactly what marshalling is (is there something you could link to perhaps?) Secondly, the part about pretentious clerics seems subjective as and such would definitely require a citation. Seems like there might be a more scholarly way of wording that too. Thirdly, it's unclear what about the customs would make them pretentious anyway.

One other thing from the revisions you just made: "good shield composition". Is there a less subjective word than "good" to describe the nature of the shield composition?

Hope this is helpful. MarkBuckles 02:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is. The idea is that "most" details of heraldry are the same, except for the exceptions that this article goes over. Marshalling is handled later. I just cut the sentence; it seems better that way. I think I've removed the subjective comments. There is a clerical tendency to add more elements than are due - one of the points of the rules seems to be to curb that tendency. Pretentiousness perhaps isn't the right word, but one source did use the term "self-aggrandizement". The tendency can also lead to "bad" compositions, but this matter of taste is covered by the quotes from Heim. Gimmetrow 03:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Some additions

A few specificities added to help -- they are all covered, I think, by the various existing references to the CE article (which itself is not bad), and others, and the link to durham.HarvardOxon 06:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Referencing is fine for Durham heraldry. I compressed the text and wikilinked palatinate. Gimmetrow 15:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Canterbury

Why remove reference to pallium as charge? Wiki's own Archbishop of Canterbury has a depiction of the arms, which have historically been impaled with the bishop's own arms as his new personal escutcheon.HarvardOxon 21:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I originally removed it to avoid going into discussion of charges, but you were right - this is an interesting charge found in the archepiscopal arms of UK. (leaving note months after discussion) Gimmetrow 14:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, also changed the palatinate link -- the wiki Palatinate entry is for the Electorate of the Palatinate in the HRE/Germany. The County palatine link that it now goes to is the one concerned with Durham.HarvardOxon 21:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Changes under Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict has departed from the restrictions issued in 1969 regarding the mitre and pallium, as I understand it from the WP article on his coat of arms. I have added a parenthetical note of this in the text of this article. However, I am not an expert in this field and someone else might want to look it over.

Also, the image of the papal coat of arms for that section strikes me as poor for this purpose. It has a lot of other elements than commonly included in the coat of arms and the essential elements are kind of crowded at the top. Would anyone object to using this image instead? Vaquero100 23:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, the coat of arms depicted in the article appears to be a personal c.o.a. rather than the arms of the Holy See. If so, whose arms are depicted ought to be mentioned (I am thinking they are the arms of Pope Paul III). Vaquero100 23:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The coat of arms of Benedict XVI were mentioned at the end of that section. What you have added seems redundant to me. (I'm not a fan of two "of"s in the lead either.) The image was selected to illustrate supporters (angels) which are not discussed in the other papal insignia pages. I have searched the images on Commons for a good illustration and this was about the best I found. (The Ecclesiastical heraldry category here is my work product trying to locate images. I even created/uploaded the picture you've suggested, but I have it up for deletion at the moment!) Paul III looks correct. Gimmetrow 00:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I had a feeling I would not have much to contribute to this article...BTW, you have done a lot of good work on this article. The rest that I can see looks very well-written. Vaquero100 01:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)