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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 by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 15 October 2024 [1].

Meurig ab Arthfael

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Nominator(s): Dudley Miles (talk) 10:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Images are appropriately licensed, though the second could have a better alt text. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:48, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Nikki. Expanded alt text a bit. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:18, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Llewee

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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

UC

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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.
  • 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..."?
  • 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...?
  • from widespread lawlessness and arbitrary use of power: this implies that his kingdom had widespread lawlessness and arbitrary use of power; is that correct?
  • 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.
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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,.
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@Dudley Miles: did you see this one? UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:32, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are the names in the "Charters" section italicised?
  • OK. So we don't italicise foreign personal names. How about place names? Dudley Miles (talk) 16:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • "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]"?
  • 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?

UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:23, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just one thing I've noticed on a second read: is Cum Mouric definitely that, and not Cwm Mouric (Mouric's Valley)? UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FM

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  • "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?
  • Link ecclesiastical?
  • "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.
  • Link Welsh and Wales in article body too?

Comments from Mike Christie

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  • I don't understand what Sims-Williams means by "amount to the same thing"; the two theories seem different to me.
    • He does not explain, but I take him to mean that in his view there is no real difference between a kingdom with a king and sub-kings and two kingdoms with one king having superior status. The problem seems to be that Davies says that there was only one kingdom, but she also refers to the rulers of the (later small) Gwent as kings, so she must see them as sub-kings, but she does not spell this out. I could clarify that Davies sees the eastern kings as sub-kings, though this verges on SYNTH as she does not say so. What do you think? Dudley Miles (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's best to leave it as is if you can't find text in source that lets you clarify it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The fact that Brochfael and Ffernfael are Meurig's sons is mentioned three times in two sentences at the end of the first paragraph of "Kingship"; this could be compressed.
    Could we do something like this: "Confirmation that Meurig and his sons, Brochfael and Ffernfael, ruled in the ninth century is provided by their notice in two independent sources. Asser in his biography of Alfred the Great of 893 mentions "Brochfael and Ffernfael (sons of Meurig and kings of Gwent)", and charter 199bii[b] is a grant by King Meurig ab Arthfael, giving his sons' names as witnesses"? I agree the material needs to be there -- I just think we could phrase it in a way that sounds less repetitive. We've given Meurig's patronymic at the start of the paragraph, and the quote from Asser gives it again; and it's not needed for the sons because we explicitly say they are his sons. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "According to a Harleian genealogy (Old Welsh genealogy preserved": suggest either "(Old Welsh genealogy ..." or "(an Old Welsh genealogy ...".
    Done. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "his cousins, Meurig's sons, had an inferior status as kings of Gwent": it seems this interpretation requires us to follow Charles-Edwards' argument that old Gwent was divided; presumably Davies would not agree with this description? If so, shouldn't the conditionality be apparent to the reader?
  • "he cannot have been wholly successful as charters continued to grant churches in the tenth and eleventh centuries": looks like a word is missing? Or else I don't understand the intended meaning. He granted land to the churches, perhaps? And I don't really see how this is connected to the previous sentence.
    • Changed to "kings continued to grant churches". Does this clarify? Dudley Miles (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      From my (passing) familiarity with AS charters, I thought that typically the grant would be of land for the church, and that's how I recall the sources talking about them. If these were in fact grants of land I would make that clearer; if not, what exactly did they grant? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Welsh practice was different. The grants were of churches and attached land to bishops. In at least some cases they were restoration of churches previously misappropriated by kings. I have dropped Davies's comment that Meurig protected ecclesiastical immunity and replaced it with one where she expressed herself more clearly, saying he attempted to free all ecclesiastical property from lay control. Does this work? Dudley Miles (talk) 08:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        So a charter granting a church might take a church from one owner and give it to another? I was assuming these were grants that enabled the creation of new churches, but I now see why these grants would be evidence of continued interference in ecclesiastical affairs. Could we make the second part of the sentences something like "kings continued to make grants that assigned churches to new owners ..." or whatever the sources will support? That was what I wasn't clear on. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • No change necessarily needed, but I'd be curious to know how Charles-Edwards argues that Meurig died in 849 given the existence of the charters with later dates.
  • Any reason not to promote note [c] to the body of the article? It seems relevant enough.
    • It is very speculative and not mentioned by later historians. It depends on someone mentioned in an early genealogy really being someone who lived later and was son of one king and father of another, with no evidence but the names. Promoting it to the main text would seem to me UNDUE. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm going to strike my point here, since I think it's a stylistic choice, but I disagree. I think the choice of whether to put material in a footnote or the body is about whether it directly addresses the topic of the article, or is off-topic (as the explanation of a technical term might be). This seems very relevant to Meurig. If it's UNDUE, it shouldn't be in the article; or at least if it's speculative we should qualify it as something like "One historian suggests ..." or give the historian's name. I hadn't followed the link to our article on Bartrum, but I see he's a genealogist. Do we have support for this being work respected by the academics in this field? Genealogy is rife with unreliable sources, but I know there are some good sources amongst the chaff. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:35, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Bartrum was a respected scholar who is cited by historians. I have added the description of him in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography as a "scholar of Welsh genealogy". I moved his comment to a note as I was concerned that in the main text it would appear to be a mainstream theory, and I have moved it back and added historians views on Nowy's ancestry to make clear that Bartrum is not accepted on this point. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      That works well. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:59, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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I wonder why "The Book of Llandaff as a Historical Source. " has no citations on Google Scholar, and does Dictionary of Welsh Biography. need an ISBN or OCLC? Otherwise, nothing that jumps out to me. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:46, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Google Scholar at [2] states that The Book of Llandaff as a Historical Source was awarded the Francis Jones Prize in Welsh History 2019 by Jesus College Oxford and shows 15 citations. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography is now online only, and like the online version of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography does not have an isbn. Thanks for your review. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In general, Google Scholar is not a good measure of impact and citation in the humanities: it's particularly poor in Classics, for example. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a better measure of impact and citations, for the humanities? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:28, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, unfortunately. I struggled a lot with this when writing Journal of Roman Archaeology: it's a really major publication in its field, as the name would suggest, but it was quite tricky to find actual proof of that. You could search its title in Google Books, JSTOR etc to find it in bibliographies of other works -- from memory, it comes up a lot when you look into this area. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:39, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Tim riley

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Late to the table, I'm afraid. Didn't spot the listing in the FAC queue. But an advantage of turning up late is that the heavy lifting has all been done by those imprudent enough to turn up early. I have no comments to make on the article as it now stands: it's a good read and the content – as far as my non-existent expertise goes – seems thorough and well documented. Meets all the FA criteria as far as I can see. My spell-check will recover from the ordeal fairly quickly, I hope. Tim riley talk 13:58, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tim. Luckily the government has not yet brought in a law against cruelty to spellchecks. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:31, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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