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Cefnllys Castle

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I've recently rewritten this article from the ground up and am looking for advice prior to (hopefully) submitting it for GA/FAC review. In particular, I'm looking for suggestions on the opening sentences of the lead (how to define the subject as it also covers the borough, as well as the castle). Also, is it helpful to have site plan numbers included within the text of the description section (as in this revision?) Note: sorry for editing this review request --doh!

Many thanks, Jr8825 • Talk 18:54, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley

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  1. It seems misleading to cover the town under an article called Cefnllys Castle. I suggest creating a stub article for the town and just keeping a brief summary in this article with a link as {{main|Cefnllys}}.
  2. The term Black Death usually refers just to the pandemic of 1347-51, not to the subsequent outbreaks of bubonic plague.
  3. "Originally a motte-and-bailey castle" I suggest specifying a wooden motte-and-bailey castle.
  4. You have references in the second paragraph of the lead but not the first and third. FA articles normally have a lead which is an unreferenced summary of the referenced main text.
  5. "It has also been speculated that the princely court of a native Welsh ruler was situated nearby." Before the castle was built?
  6. "Cefnllys featured prominently in the ensuing peace treaty" How?
  7. "the 19th century standard Kevenlleece is recorded by 1679" I do not understand what you are saying here. Do you mean that the spelling Kevenlleece in 19C later became Cefnllys?
  8. " Cefnllys is "Mons Clece", an unidentified place name in Wales on the Hereford Mappa Mundi". This is unclear. Are you saying that the map shows a place called Mons Clece which Breeze identifies as Cefnllys Castle?
  9. "granting commanding views" "giving commanding views"?
  10. "The earlier northern castle" The first wooden castle or the earlier stone one?
  11. "although the llys may have superseded the castle and no physical traces have been found". Do you mean "may have been superseded by"?
  12. "Llywelyn sent a letter to Edward I in April 1273 or 1274 protesting Roger's "new work", and requested Edward prevent construction from continuing, lest he take action himself." I think it would be helpful to have the quote in the main text rather than a separate box.
  13. "although Browne & Pearson (2006) express uncertainty over the primary source's accuracy". This is ambiguous whether the doubt is over whether the castle was captured or over whether it was captured.
  14. "The poems, which remarkably survive in a manuscript from 1468" Why remarkably? Many manuscripts survive.
  15. "accounts from 1356-7 show that from Maelienydd's gross income of £215, only £15 was extracted from the Welshry outside the swydd of Dinieithon." What is the significance of this?
  16. "The town was small, remote and ultimately short-lived:" I would delete "ultimately" as superflouous.
  17. "the borough eventually encompassed one-fifth of the parish." This is unhelpful as you have not explained the size of the settlement compared with the parish.
  18. "the celebrated landscape painter" Terms such as "celebrated" are considered peacock and unencyclopedic.
  19. The article seems to me not far off FA. The main problems are 1. As discussed by you and above, the coverage of the town in the article about the castle. 2. Lack of clarity in several comments as discussed above. 3. I do not like the practice of quoting by adding the author and date in brackets. The usual practice is to give authors without brackets with their full name the first time they are mentioned and just the surname on any late mentions. E.g. "change was "expressed architecturally by the decay of the masonry castles ... and by the building of new timber halls at or near the castle sites by the Welshmen of influence within a lordship" (Suggett, 2005)." might be 'in the view of Richard Suggett, change was "expressed architecturally by the decay of the masonry castles ... and by the building of new timber halls at or near the castle sites by the Welshmen of influence within a lordship'".
Dudley Miles (talk) 14:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your feedback! I'll work through it shortly. Jr8825 • Talk 15:07, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  1.  Done I agree your suggestion is best for the sake of clarity and I've created a new article, although I've been torn about this for a while. I've tried to retain as much information as possible in the castle article as the social history of Cefnllys (the town) inherently ties together with (and helps elucidate) its military history (the castle). I've reworded the remaining information to emphasise its significance to the castle. I think the final brief description of the borough in the 1800s is a fitting closure to the castles' history by concluding the sweep of history and emphasising their remoteness - it's almost a bit Ozymandian!
  2.  Done - although I'm not 100% confident about this as the bubonic plague article directs readers to the Black Death for 'information about the medieval plague'. Maybe Black Death in England would be suitable, as it has a section on recurrences?
  3.  Done
  4.  Partly done - I'm aware of MOS:LEADCITE and had been trying to limit refs in the lead, I included those three citations (which happened to be in the 2nd para) as I felt each of the statements they were supporting could appear to be editorialising and needed authority. I've now removed one but my feeling is that the other two are still valuable enough to warrant keeping.
  5. Not sure. There might have been a court before, after, or before and after the Norman castle. In the article I place the court chronologically ahead of the castle, partly because it might have been earlier but mostly because the castle is certain whereas a court, like the hillfort, is speculative (this layout also allows a chronological flow into the next section). The article text explains that the time period is unknown & that it may have been built after the castle. The current lead is accurate in its blanket doubtfulness ("speculated"), would adding a further clause for explain this be a worthwhile improvement? I don't want to over-emphasise the court in the lead, and it would also be following another caveat clause about the lack of evidence for a hillfort.
  6. Not sure. The status of the land and the right to build a castle at Cefnllys was included in pretty complicated clause of the treaty, explained in the article body. I can't think of a straightforward way of explaining this further in the lead.
  7.  Done - reworded
  8.  Done - reworded
  9.  Done
  10.  Done
  11.  Done - now reworded. the existing wording is correct (this is also related to point #5). The source says it's possible the castle "became a llys site" after the Normans were pushed out, and while there might have been a llys before the castle this claim is "considerably more cautious". I think the current wording is a good summary of this. An early llys might've been situated somewhere else in the area, whereas the sentence is specifically about one site.
  12.  Not done - I disagree with you here. I think retaining the extract as a quote adds interest for the reader, while adding it into the text would require cutting most of the letter's text and make the prose more convoluted. Perhaps a second opinion might be helpful if you feel differently?
  13.  Done - combed back through the sources and rewrote this more thoroughly
  14.  Done
  15.  Done
  16.  Done
  17.  Done
  18.  Done
  19.  Done - changed the formatting of attributed quotes
Jr8825 • Talk 04:04, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The only further comment I have is on 11. The reference to the llys is in a paragraph on pre-Norman activity, yet you refer to it as having been after the castle. This is confusing and needs explanation. Do you mean in a period of Welsh control between the first and second castles? If so you should clarify. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:43, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dudley Miles: Thanks for the clarification, I see what you mean and have reworded both paragraphs to hopefully make things clearer. Jr8825 • Talk 13:53, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Catlemur

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  1. Wikilink Marcher Lord and capitalize it consistently on all mentions.
  1. Roger then started building a new castle on the southern side of the ridge which Llywelyn, who interpreted..→Roger then started building a new castle on the southern side of the ridge, which Llywelyn, who interpreted..
  2. and at the outbreak of Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion in 1400 Cefnllys was in temporary royal custody.→ and at the outbreak of Owain Glyndŵr's rebellion in 1400, Cefnllys was in temporary royal custody.
  3. Ref 69 lists pages 127-127
  4. Note 4 is missing a ref.
  5. The infobox mentions that its a Scheduled monument yet this is not mentioned in the main body of the article. When was the decision taken to make it one and by whom? Has any restoration work been done to it by the authorities?
  6. The infobox likewise mentions that it is open to the public but this is not reflected in the main body of the article.Catlemur (talk) 11:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  1.  Partly done - wikilinked the first mention. I've capitalised 'Marcher' everywhere but not 'lords' since it's a common noun and isn't usually capitalised in academic literature on the subject
  2.  Done
  3.  Done
  4.  Done - removed the last subclause, although the rebellion is poorly documented it'd take me a while to find a source explicitly saying that
  5.  Not done - I can't find this information. The date of scheduling for the medieval settlement was 1995, but the dates for the castles are missing from the online records, I presume because they were designated near the start of scheduling in 1979 and the records were poorly digitised. The full list is maintained by Cadw, a government body, but not published and only available upon request. Specific scheduling files aren't online either. The decision was probably made by Cadw on the advice of the local archaeological trust and RCAHMW, but the process seems to have been pretty informal before changes in 2016. I think it's apparent that restoration work hasn't been done since there hasn't been any excavation - but do you think it'd be helpful to spell this out in the text?
  6.  Done - it's open access land so I've now clarified this. Thanks for your input @Catlemur:. Jr8825 • Talk 15:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from JM

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I copied these comments from the talk page -- I didn't see that there was a PR open until after I'd posted.

@Jr8825: Thanks for inviting me to take a look at this article.

  • Your Wiles reference appears in the bibliography but is apparently not cited in the article.
 Done - removed the ref Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • You don't need to provide retrieval dates for online versions of offline sources -- they are "courtesy links". You're citing the book/journal themselves, not the webpage you're linking to.
 Done Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a bit worried about your The Castles and History of Radnorshire source; the paper you link to (judging from the opening remarks) is different to the version that appeared in The Castles and History of Radnorshire. If you want to cite the paper, I think you'd have to treat it as a self-published source (though it certainly wouldn't be a bad one). Alternatively, you could cite the book, or some other publication from the author.
 Done - I was a unsure about this one myself. I can't afford the book so I was already treating it as self-published - i.e. it's from a subject matter expert whose work has been published by, and widely commented on in, the field's most established independent sources. I've kept the source but removed the book link, is there anything I'm unaware of that I should do (indicating it's self-published etc.)? Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your Prestwich source; it's a little unusual to cite a single chapter in a monograph. That's standard only in collections, anthologies, and the like.
 Done Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not the biggest problem, but try to be consistent in your capitalisation of book titles, article titles, etc. Also try to be consistent in your inclusion of location information.
 Done Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a little confused by your Barley source. Is that a single essay within a longer report? It's not quite clear what I'm looking at, but that may be my problem.
Not sure. Yep, it's an essay within a report collection (or, a report within a report!). Not sure what I can change here. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for making adjustments to the ref. Jr8825 • Talk 13:55, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Plan of Castle Bank.jpg Really has to go. Sorry. It potentially runs up against NFCC#2 concerns (it's someone else's map that we're using as a map -- if you were using this to show that particular map, things might be different) but, more straightforwardly, it fails NFCC#1: there's nothing stopping us producing our own (probably much simpler) map based upon that one. Take a look at some of Midnightblueowl's archaeology FAs, for instance; she's created her own maps based on maps published by archaeologists.
 Done - Oh man. That sucks. Well I'm stubborn so I spent all day creating a new one from scratch, based off all the maps and aerial photos I could fine. Took me hours. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's brilliant -- I recommend listing all the sources you have used (especially the scholarly sources) on the image page! Josh Milburn (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Jr8825 • Talk 15:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The same is (regrettably) true of File:Aerial view of Cefnllys Castle.jpg. You might ask what the odds are of getting a free replacement, but the simple fact is that lots of people do fly around in various vehicles, and drone technology is now very accessible. In addition to NFCC#2 and NFCC#1 concerns, this one might run up against #NFCC8. I honestly think it's going to be rare that non-free content is justified in articles like this.
 Done - Kick me when I'm down, eh? Tagged for deletion, and I've emailed a few possible sources to see if I can convince anyone to release an aerial photo under a Creative Commons license. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, good luck. Josh Milburn (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "entirely ruinous and only scattered ruins remain" A little repetitive
 Done - removed 'entirely' Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It was the repetition of "ruin" that jarred slightly. Josh Milburn (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - Reworded the sentence, should be fine now. Jr8825 • Talk 15:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why the 'single quotes' in the lead and etymology section? Is there something in the MOS about this? I'm not sure the use is completely consistent.
 Not done - I included them to follow MOS:SINGLE for defining/translating unfamiliar terms. I'll happily change this though, particularly if it's incorrect or I misunderstood the manual. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Understood; are you sure about the single quotes on "is sometimes called 'Cefnllys Old Castle'."? Josh Milburn (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - thanks for looking back at this, I've now corrected that bit to use double quotes. Jr8825 • Talk 15:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As the Marcher lords expanded their control westward, Maelienydd formed a core part of the turbulent area known as the middle march, together with Gwrtheyrnion and Elfael.[2] The castle was viewed as a forward defence against Welsh incursions by towns along the English border, particularly Hereford.[6]" I suspect people who don't know what Marcher lords were would be puzzled by this sentence. It's a Welsh castle; why would it protect the English (they might think)?
 Done - added 'English' before Marcher lords to clarify this. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's a scarp? Could we have a wikilink or description?
 Done - added wikilink Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "our understanding" Not very Wikipedia. How about "archaeologists' understanding" or something like "21st century understanding"?
 Done - went for 'modern understanding' Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Martin & Silvester" and "Scourfield & Haslam" How about something like "The archaeologists John Smith and Julie Jones"? It's a little more prosaic, and more readable for non-academic readers (which will surely include plenty of locals, hikers, etc.)
 Partly done - Hmm. The thing is the text 'the archaeologist A.E. Brown' is just above this, and I don't want to be overly repetitive. I've added 'Among recent studies,' to the beginning of the sentence, which I hope makes things clearer. If you/others don't think this works then perhaps it just has to be repeated. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is an improvement; but now I'm wondering if you're referring to the studies rather than the authors (especially given that you're using the ampersands!) you should include years and think about them as singular studies rather than plural authors. I don't know -- maybe I'm overthinking. Josh Milburn (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - restored the dates of the studies. I originally removed these on the advice of Dudley, but I think the issue then was not integrating the author names into the text, which is now done by the clause at the start. Jr8825 • Talk 15:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's a suzerain? Again, wikilink or explanation would be helpful!
 Done - added wikilink Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Mortimer's castle of Cefnllys has capitulated: Roger and his retinue have left unharmed. All this has led to rumour of treachery and the whole March is in terror." What a stunning quote!
:)
  • "of 8 horse and 20 foot throughout" Is that the usual way to refer to these things? (Incidentally, was that a large garrison?)
 Done - it does sound a bit archaic, the wording was from the original source and I've changed it to 'horsemen' and 'footmen', which also helps to avoid following the wording too closely. As for the size - average I think? It was the same garrison size as at several other Welsh castles during the war. I don't recall any of the sources making a particular comment about this, so I presume it was relatively unremarkable. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Browne & Pearson" As before.
 Done Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Richard Suggett" Who is he? A historian?
 Done - yep. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "small amounts of tribute, rather than rent" I confess the significance of this is lost on me.
 Later - will think about this tomorrow. Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - I've given the wording a slight tweak. It's not a big change but hopefully makes it clearer that the information is serving to show how limited Mortimer control was away from the castle. Jr8825 • Talk 15:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could we have a link or explanation for "burgesses"?
 Done Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and in 1831 it comprised, besides the castle ruins, 16 residents in "three Farm Houses and one small Cottage".[73]" And the church, presumably?
 Done - good spot! Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This reads very well, and I enjoyed looking through it. I made some small edits, which you should double-check! Josh Milburn (talk) 10:58, 3 October 2020 (UTC) Josh Milburn (talk) 11:04, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the helpful feedback @J Milburn:, it's much appreciated! If you have time to review my comments that's great, but as you're busy I'm sure I'll be able to clear up any remaining issues with the help of other editors. Cheers, Jr8825 • Talk 23:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Shame about not having access to that book; a quick library search suggests that it's very rare! I think this is looking great now. Do let me know when it goes to FAC. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:29, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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