Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Meurig ab Arthfael/archive1
Meurig ab Arthfael (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
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- Nominator(s): Dudley Miles (talk) 10:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Meurig ab Arthfael was a king in south-east Wales in the ninth century, but the extent of his territory is disputed by historians. Although little is known of him, he is mentioned in Asser's life of Alfred the Great, and he is described as one of the few kings who tried to protect the church against lawlessness and abuse of power. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Images are appropriately licensed, though the second could have a better alt text. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:48, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Nikki. Expanded alt text a bit. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:18, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Llewee
[edit]The article appears to be in a good condition. It is a little short but I assume not much information is available about this individual's life. I would suggest adding a Template:Subject bar at the end with links to Portal:Middle Ages, Portal:Wales and Portal:Monarchy.--Llewee (talk) 15:34, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Llewee. I think I will leave this pending comments from other editors. I have never added portal bars and it has never previously been suggested to me. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
UC
[edit]I'm not totally sold on the prose, as yet. I appreciate there's not masses of information about Meurig and much is unsound, but there are a few bits where the grammar isn't quite right, and/or the flow doesn't quite, well, flow as neatly as I would like -- it's slightly tough going to get through and I'm not sure I fully understand what's being said.
The usual pointers and nitpicks below:
- Note 1: I would advise adding that ab/ap are both contractions of mab ('son'), and that the consonant/vowel rule is only mostly true -- see here p. 8, with note).
- Hywel ap Rhys, King of Glywysing: this came up in previous FACs -- the MoS is tricky here, but I'd advise decapitalising for consistency.
- I don't think "Book of Llandaff" is generally italicised -- neither Sims-Williams nor the National Library of Wales do this.
- Two charters state that he ordered all churches were to be free from obligations to laymen: I found this difficult to parse -- better as "he freed all churches from their obligations..."?
- Done, but not the word "their". Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- in the view of the historian Wendy Davies, he was one of the few kings who attempted to guarantee ecclesiastical immunity: "kings" is a big crowd -- can we narrow this down to Welsh kings, medieval kings, British kings...?
- Specified king mentioned in the charters. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- from widespread lawlessness and arbitrary use of power: this implies that his kingdom had widespread lawlessness and arbitrary use of power; is that correct?
- Covered by edit above. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- Historians disagree about his death date. Some ... think that the Meurig whose death is recorded in 849 is also possible: the grammar has gone a bit wonky here.
- Revised for clarity. OK now? Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- later Morgannwg and then Glamorgan: when is later here -- are these terms that postdate the subject of this article by a long way?
- I should have written "or", not "and then". Morgannwg is a term which has been used as a post-Roman name for the area, but it is not recorded before the eleventh century and historians now think that it is named after a late tenth century king. Glamorgan appears to be an anglicisation of the Welsh name, although I cannot find this spelled out specifically. It is used by historians for all periods, even though it is also based on the late tenth century king. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- However, they are undated, and it is not always clear which Meurig is being referred to.: does they refer to all the charters, or just the possibly-genuine ones? I think the second/third clause might be clearer if it stepped back and said more explicitly that there are several people called Meurig named in the charters.
- Revised for clarity. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- The n of e.g. n. 27 needs a space after it, just like the p. when it stands for "page".
- two independent sources: independent of what? Not of the Book of Llandaff, since one of them is a charter from it, though we only indirectly say that.
- Independent of each other - Asser and a charter. This seems clear to me. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- We need a date for Asser, I think.
- Almost nothing is known of history in south-east Wales immediately before his time as his reign follows a gap in the Llandaff charters of some fifty years: so the Llandaff charters are the only way we know anything about Welsh history? That sounds surprising, put mildly, and I'm sure would put some archaeologists' noses out of joint.
- Changed "history" to "kings". I am not sure that archaeologists' noses would be put out of joint - they probably would not be able to say anything specific about south-east Wales between 800 and 850. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- cording to a Harleian genealogy: I think we need to give the reader some idea of what they're working with here.
- Charles-Edwards suggests that he and his brother Rhys ab Arthfael probably ruled Glywysing successively: as written, it sounds as though C-E has been moonlighting as an early medieval warlord.
- You could consider dropping the patronymic from names where the sentence explicitly sets them up as the son of someone, such as Meurig ab Arthfael and his sons, Brochfael ap Meurig and Ffernfael ap Meurig,.
- I think it is helpful to spell out the full names. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- Patronymics are, strictly, disambiguators rather than part of a full name (they're not surnames in the modern sense), so wouldn't routinely be included in contexts where there's no ambiguity. It's not wrong to do so, it's just redundant -- though this is hardly a major issue. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
- OED defines patronymic as "A name derived from that of a father or male ancestor, esp. by addition of an affix indicating such descent; a family name. Also: an affix used to form such a name." I take this to mean that it is part of the full name, and it is correct to give the full name at first mention of a person. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:14, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
- When we mean "the Church" as in the big institution headquartered in Rome, I would capitalise, to distinguish from when we're talking about the stone building in the village.
- I do not mean the church in Rome. The grants are to bishops, and I thought of saying so, but this could mean to them personally, whereas they are ot them as representatives of their dioceses. "church" seems to me to convey the grants' nature, but I am open to suggestions. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- If we're not thinking of "the church" as a single institution (though I must admit I'm not sure I see the distinction you're drawing here), we shouldn't use a singular noun for it -- "to bishops" works, or alternatively you could do some other phrasing to the effect that he placed lands under ecclesiastical control? UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:40, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- Why are the names in the "Charters" section italicised?
- They are italicised in the sources, presumably as foreign language. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- Right, but we haven't done that for any other non-English names in the article. Nor do we routinely italicise other names where the non-English name is their common name in English, like Marcus Aurelius, Ibn Sina or Kongzi. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:42, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- OK. So we don't italicise foreign personal names. How about place names? Dudley Miles (talk) 16:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- The question isn't what sort of word it is, but whether it's the same word in English. In most of these cases, the toponym isn't specifically English or Welsh -- it's just the name of the place. Compare:
- Paris is the capital city of France
- El Dorado is a mythical place in South America.
- Corpus Christi is a city in Texas
- In front of Wellington's line was the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte
- Barring an exception where MOS:WORDSASWORDS applies, in general, we don't italicise any of these. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- The question isn't what sort of word it is, but whether it's the same word in English. In most of these cases, the toponym isn't specifically English or Welsh -- it's just the name of the place. Compare:
- Removed italics. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- OK. So we don't italicise foreign personal names. How about place names? Dudley Miles (talk) 16:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a little wary of how hard we dive into charters after the warning that most of them might be fraudulent. Do we have a particular reason to trust the authenticity of the ones mentioned here?
- Davies, who is the chief authority, labels ones that she considers fraudulent or dubious. I have left out any which are dubious, and also cited other sources on them. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- From the "Charters" section, the tone gets a bit more insiderish than I think we want here -- it's the sort of writing you would expect from an academic in the field to other academics, but not really the right stuff for a general encyclopaedia whose writers claim no scholarly authority. For instance, (Little Dewchurch?) -- we would do better to replace the question mark with an explanation of what it's doing there -- maybe "conjectured to be the village of..."? Similarly the Annales Cambriae for 873, recte 874): recte isn't quite right here, as we normally use it when correcting scribal errors -- do we mean the entry for 874, which is written under the number 873? If so, I'd give it in text as 874, and footnote the detail -- most readers won't be very interested in it, quite frankly, and we lose less by relegating it to the notes than we do by making them all read Latin.
- Fixed. recte is the term used in the sources, but I agree that it is not needed here. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- "the claims of the relative chronology of the witness sequence are such as to suggest that Meurig ab Arthfael, the King Meurig of grants 169b-171b, 199bii (214?), 216b, 225 died in 874 rather than 849": not sure I see the reason for a long quote here -- why not just "Davies argues that Meurig died in 874, rather than 849, on the basis of [a slightly clearer explanation of what he claims to have seen in the charters]"?
- I think it is worth spelling out with the quote that Davies provides a detailed explanation for her view, unlike other historians who give no reason. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
- The royal line descended from Meurig appears to have ended with Brochfael: remind the reader of when he died?
- Check the abbreviation of AD in the title of Bartrum 1993.
- What's the need for the Lloyd citation -- it seems to appear only once, and to be triple-cited with two much more recent works?
- Lloyd's book is the source of the map. It is the only suitable one I could find which is not copyright. The other citations are for points in the explanatory note. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:23, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
- Many thanks UndercoverClassicist. Replies above. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
FM
[edit]- Will review soonish. FunkMonk (talk) 19:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
- "Folio from the Book of Llandaff" Give more context for its relation to the story in the caption?
- "it was divided between Glywysing (Glamorgan)" It's unclear at this point what the parenthesis means in this context. A bit clearer in the article body, but not much.
- " (later Morgannwg or Glamorgan[4])" Later what? Renamed? A successor kingdom?
- Many thanks FunkMonk. All fixed. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:38, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
- Link ecclesiastical?
- There is no article with that title. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
- "may be the Meurig whose died" Who died?
- "and in the view of the historian Wendy Davies". You present one modern historian in the intro, could be nice for context if this was done for the people mentioned in the article body too.
- I do not think this is necessary. In the lead I only mention Davies. In main text I say that historians disagree and then list them. I think that covers it. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
- Link Welsh and Wales in article body too?
- Changed link in lead to Wales in the early Middle Ages and linked to the same article in the main text. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks FunkMonk. Further replies. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
- Support - looks good to me. FunkMonk (talk) 17:34, 19 September 2024 (UTC)