Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Æthelbald of Mercia

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 18:03, 4 June 2007.

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Æthelbald of Mercia

Passed GA recently; some sprucing up done since then. Note: there have been suggestions made for further research by a Wikipedian who is an expert in this area: see the talk page section covering the issue, which suggests that this is not necessary to complete before FA. As noted there, I can include the information based on the citations mentioned in the talk page, if reviewers here feel it's necessary. All comments gratefully received. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 03:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• That image that initiates the Mercian dominance certainly doesn't need to be 300px wide, so I reduced it to 200. I didn't see a need for it to be left aligned either, so I threw it to the other side. Looks a tad tidier I think. -- Phoenix2 ^{(talk, review)} 16:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• I gather that Æþelbald is the Anglo-Saxon spelling of his name. (I found it on a list of kings). Could it be added to this page? These days we seem to use the less common alphabets in our articles all the time. EdJohnston 03:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

This is actually a difficult one to deal with. There was no "standard" spelling of his name, and a look at the PASE website (choose "Æ" (at the top of the screen), then "Æthelbald", then "Æthelbald 4", and then "Recorded name") shows over thirty different possible spellings in the original sources. You can see one of them in the charter image I've used in the infobox: it's spelled "Aetdilbalt" there. I have changed the name in the template you mentioned to Æthelbald, so that's consistent now. I could add a couple of the alternative spellings as examples, and mention the multiple other spellings, but I don't think that's a common approach. So I'm inclined not to mention these old spellings. In modern texts (the last couple of hundred years, at least) one doesn't see anything but "Æthelbald", "Aethelbald" or "Ethelbald". Mike Christie (talk) 09:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose: Needs some copyediting to meet the "compelling or brilliant" standard of writing. Some issues I spotted on a quick read through:
  • Mercian domination of England was continued after Æthelbald's death by Offa, the grandson of Æthelbald's cousin Eanwulf; between them, Æthelbald and Offa ruled Mercia for about eighty years, with a short gap between their two reigns. - Many isses with this sentance. First, its a "run on sentance" in that it contains MANY separate independant clauses crammed together in one sentance. Secondly, it has some misplaced modifiers that make it hard to read. "death by Offa" parses as a death CAUSED by Offa; this needs to be rewritten to be cleared that the domination was by Offa, and that the death was unrelated to him.
  • For eighty years, from 716, when Æthelbald came to the throne, until the death of Offa in 796, Mercia was ruled by two strong kings, with Beornrad's very brief reign of less than a year between the two in 757 - Awkward sentance. Again, what you are trying to say here is "Two great Mercian kings dominated Britain in the 700's: Aethelbald and his grandson Offa". The way the sentance is written it is hard to follow this train of thought.
  • By 731, Ethelbert had all the English south of the Humber under his overlordship - Context needed. Who is Ethelbert, and why are we talking about him here. He isn't even wikilinked.
  • After Aethelheard succeeded in this struggle for the throne, there are subsequent indications that he ruled subject to Mercian authority, and it may be that Æthelbald helped establish both Aethelheard and his brother, Cuthred, who succeeded Aethelheard in 739. - Another run on sentance. Consider breaking up into separate sentances. There are no less than 6 clauses squished in here.
  • The chronicler, almost certainly a West Saxon, was probably merely adding Egbert's name to Bede's original list of seven, rather than claiming that no other kings achieved similar power in England—as neither Æthelbald nor Offa were kings of Wessex perhaps the chronicler does not mention them out of regional pride. Run on sentance.
  • Does NO Image exist of him? Has no one painted or drew a picture or made a statue or anything? If there are extant images of him (even ones made much later) it may help flesh out the article. Heck, even an "Aethelbald in art" section (if there is lots) may be useful if there ARE extant images of him.

Overall, the article is well referenced and informative and fairly comprehensive; I just think the prose needs some punching up. Consider the league of copyeditors for help. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've done a pass, addressing the points you raised, and trying to find and fix other issues. The "Ethelbert" sentence was just a typo -- it should have been "Æthelbald", and is now corrected. Please let me know what you think.

With regard to an image, there's certainly nothing that purports to be a likeness. Sometimes a coin is used in a situation like this: see Canute the Great for an example. However, I don't know of any coins from Æthelbald's time that are good enough to use. See these coins for example; I don't think they're an improvement over what is currently on the article. There's also a Britannica image, presumably from the 1911 edition. Take a look at Egbert of Wessex, which uses one of these pictures; there's a discussion on the talk page which covers both sides of the debate. Personally I think this sort of image isn't worth much -- it doesn't give an accurate impression of dress, and is just the product of a Victorian engraver's imagination. So I'd prefer not to use it unless reviewers here insist (or can find something better!). On an "Æthelbald in art" section: I don't think there's enough art out there (or indeed any); a Google search doesn't find anything but the EB image, at least, and I've seen nothing in the books I've been using. Mike Christie (talk) 10:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The images thing was not a huge issue; more a question really. It looks like you have researched possible images well, and I trust your results on that search given the above comments. It looks like the copyediting was done as well. Just one more question: Would the article benefit from more info in the Infobox, like other monarch articles have (see James I of England or Henry II of France) listing children, wife, mother, locations of birth and death. Is that information about Aethelbald unknown? If it is truly unknown, than perhaps if the infobox said "unknown" rather than was completely silent on it, it may look more complete. Any ideas? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It certainly would be good to have more information in the infobox, but I think it has everything that's known. I did add "Born unknown", to make it clearer that that's an omission. One of the texts I've been using says Æthelbald was probably a young man, perhaps in his teens, while in exile; I will see if I can find that reference and take another look, but I'm sure there's no evidence given and it's just a guess. It 's a reasonable guess: Æthelbald lived another forty-one years after his accession, so he wasn't very old to start with, plus he was old enough to come back and win a fight for the throne, so mid-to-late-teens at the youngest by 716. This still gives a plausible range of over twenty years, say 675 to 701, for his birth, and it could conceivably be outside that range. It's certainly more likely that he was born in, say, 692 than in 675 or 701 -- his age at the start and end of his reign are more likely to be 24 to 65 than 41 to 82 or 15 to 56 -- but this is just guesswork. Do you feel it would be useful to add a sentence about his likely age based on this reasoning? I don't think I've seen this explicitly in the sources I'm using, so it could be regarded as original research. Mike Christie (talk) 12:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't a huge deal, really, sort of like the art question. It is quite apparent the legwork on this one has been done, and you should be commended. I am also changing my vote. This is FA status by now, IMHO. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I'm not sure about this one so far. I don't think the balance of the prose is quite right yet. I know that it is not always helful to talk about prose in general because editors require actionable specifics, so I will try to give some examples (to illustrate what I'm driving at rather than be comprehensive). The prose is never less than functional, however, and I am not far off supporting.

To make a general point first: writing about early history, where the evidence is scant, is a considerable art. The writer has on the one hand to juggle all sorts ifs and maybes, which can sound vague, and on the other to give almost microscopic attention to what evidence there is. The effective balancing of these two different elements is, in my opinion, what makes for satisfying writing about the Anglo-Saxon period. On Wikipedia, I suspect that this balance has best been achieved by User:Angusmclellan's articles, in particular Óengus I of the Picts. In the present article, I feel that the balance has too often drifted too far in the direction of the vagueness aspect, perhaps out of a feeling that the general reader will not want to go into too much detail, but in my opinion more of the few documents that do survive should be put under the microscope in the text.

Some specific points and questions:

• Dates of Offa. If there are scholarly issues about these, perhaps they should be discussed, since it says here that he reigned for 41 years, whereas the more usual figure is 39 (I can remember that from exams at school(!), and I see that Britannica goes for that figure (757 to 796), as does our article on Offa). Also I wouldn't say that they are "an additional forty-one years": they are just years.

• "Æthelbald had Mercian royal blood, although his father, Alweo, was never king. Alweo's father, Eowa, was apparently king of Mercia from perhaps 634 to 642, though there is some confusion over differing accounts, and Eowa may have actually been one of two co-rulers of Mercia, sharing the throne with his brother, Penda."

Here, I feel that the article summarises an issue without giving the reader enough information to grasp what is being summarised: in other words, we get the uncertainty of "apparently", "perhaps", "some confusion", "differing accounts", "actually may have been", without being provided with the causes of this uncertainty. The key, I think is "differing accounts": what were these accounts? I presume they were Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, whose differences are always interesting. In this sort of history, I feel we should pounce on any information, even if, as usual, it is contradictory or inconclusive. The article is not so long as to make such elucidations burdensome: dynastic origins were always important to Anglo-Saxon kings.

• "...and it was he who drove Æthelbald into exile, according to the Life of the hermit Guthlac of Crowland, a kinsman of Æthelbald's."

I don't think we should abbreviate the title of the Life of Guthlac without first introducing it. Once again, we are so short of documentation that we should pounce on what we do have. I also think it should be made clear that this life was written by Felix, because it read to me at first as if this was a life of Æthelbald written by Guthlac, or a life of Guthlac written by himself. We might also be given some more information about Guthlac and where he lived: did he live on one of those islands that used to exist in the fens before they were drained? Such islands were common places to escape from enemies, which might be a reason why Æthelbald went there (Alfred the Great chose a similar hiding place at Athelney Island; so did Hereward the Wake, according to legend), so if a ref can be found, the nature of the place might be worth mentioning.

• "Guthlac often provided Æthelbald and his followers with shelter at his cell in the fens of the east midlands. Guthlac prophesied greatness for him, and Æthelbald later rewarded Guthlac with a shrine when he had become king."

The vagueness creeps in again here. "Shelter at his cell", even if it comes from the Life, is a bit awkward, since it is hard to imagine a future king and his followers sheltering in a cell, unless it was raining. We have to provide a note of scepticism when the old sources, even Bede (who likes to spice things up with the odd miracle), say this sort of thing. (We can use the word "claimed" without its being original thought, especially since some aery-faery things happen in this Life of Guthlac, it seems, such as prophesying). Kirby adopts a note of scepticism about this source, and so I think should the article.

• Apart from the comments about the "bretwalda" tag, the article rather takes for granted that the reader understands how overlordship worked. It might be worth researching this aspect to produce some lines on the topic for the article. What was the relationship between kings? Was there always a high king, even when not noted by Bede? What was Æthelbald's relationship with the East Angles (see my note on the talk page), or with the Hwicce, for example?

• "Æthelbald seems to have reasserted his authority over the West Saxons by the time of his death, since a later West Saxon king, Cynewulf, is recorded as witnessing a charter of Æthelbald at the very beginning of his reign, in 757."

I think the article should maybe explain the significance of "witnessing a charter" here, or else the point may not come across.

• Although there are particular mentions of Æthelbald's influence on church affairs, did his pre-eminence over southern kings give him a say in the appointment of the archbiship of Canterbury? I think it might have, which would be quite significant. The church at this point in history was highly international: if Æthelbald was in touch with Boniface in Germany and presiding at councils or synods under the aegis of the archbishopric of Canterbury, this speaks of a growing European dimension to Mercian power (we know that Offa was to correspond with Charlemagne about marriages between their children), as well as the coming of the age of temporal rulers requiring church sanction for their reigns. (My overall suggestion here is that there might be some larger points to be made about Æthelbald's significance.)

• "Boniface sent the letter to Ecgberht, the archbishop of York, telling him to edit the letter as he thought best; and he also sent it to Herefrith, a priest whom Æthelbald would listen to, with the request that he read it to Æthelbald."

This isn't clear to me. Did he sent Ecgberht the letter to edit before sending it on to Æthelbald? If not, what does "edit" mean in this context? More interestingly, does anyone say why Boniface sent this to the archbishop of York, since York was in Northumbrian territory? Would the fact that York was under Canterbury mean that Æthelbald, who was influential at Canterbury, might thereby be influential at York, or that in Europe he was regarded as the chief king of all English kingdoms (not just the southern ones but including the north)?

• "A subsequent letter of Boniface's to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, implicitly encouraged him to hold a synod..."

"Implicitly encouraged" sounds a bit odd to me; does this mean "hinted that he should"? This is a case where I think it would be better to report what he actually said. (Where there are documents, we should foreground them, I think; the article does this well with the Ismere Diploma paragraph, in my opinion.)

• "A claim made in a ninth-century document that Æthelbald had killed the kinsman of a Mercian abbess has also contributed negatively to his reputation."

Again, which document? Go for it.

It's a promising article, and I congratulate Mike Christie for bringing it up to this standard; I do believe it can still be improved, however. qp10qp 02:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I will respond as a set of bullets, leading with quotes from your points, to pair them up -- I know some posters don't like to have their posts split by responses, so this seems the best way. However, before I proceed, I'd like to thank you for an incredibly detailed and helpful set of comments. I hope I can take full advantage of your work and make this a much better article.

My responses will show up in a piecemeal fashion, probably over several days, as it will take some time for me to work through your points. I'm also aware that your list is not intended to be exhaustive, so when I've worked through the individual points I'll try to take a general pass and address all instances that I can find of the issues you've identified.

A couple of general comments: yes, I'm a fan of User:Angusmclellan's, too; and I agree also that the approach I've taken is biased towards vagueness. I have a tendency to use too many qualifiers, which I try to police, but the texts on the period 400-600 use a lot of qualifying phrases to remind the reader that there are almost no certainties in this period. I think you're right to say that the right response is to put what sources we have under the microscope. I'm all in favour of more detail; if the result is something that isn't too detailed for a typical Wikipedia reader, then I'll be happy.

• Dates of Offa. This was just a mistake -- either bad arithmetic, or I used Æthelbald's reign's duration when I meant to use Offa's. Corrected. As far as "additional" goes, though, I'd like to suggest it (or a synonym such as "further") should stay; the context is the overall eighty years that Æthelbald and Offa reigned between them, so I think some adverbial reference should be made to that.

OK. qp10qp 16:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Æthelbald's royal blood. The confusion is about whether Penda and Eowa were co-rulers. I will have to get to my copy of Swanton to resolve this; I'm travelling for a couple of days.
• "...and it was he who drove Æthelbald into exile . . . ." I've done some edits to fix this; Felix is now mentioned, and Guthlac gets a sentence of introduction. I added a little more about his background, which I think is useful for context on Mercian nobility. He apparently lived in a "barrow"; I've linked that to tumulus.

• "Guthlac often provided Æthelbald and his followers with shelter . . . ." This now merely states that Æthelbald and his men took refuge in the Fens in the vicinity; this is how Kirby phrases it and I thought that was the most straightforward thing to say. I don't have access to the primary source here, but the secondary sources refer to "other visitors" of Guthlac's (when talking about Haedde) so it seems clear that Æthelbald actually visited Guthlac -- this would have been necessary to gain his support anyway, and the dream/prophesy makes no sense if they had not met.

-- Mike Christie (talk) 04:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Most certainly he visited him: it makes sense politically and geographically. I meant that scepticism is required for the prophesying and fabling aspects. Your changes are professionally done and the prose now has the balance right, in my opinion.

I am trying to picture Guthlac's establishment, and I imagine that he had accommodation available for visitors: maybe there was a group of barrows (they are often in groups), or a religious community nearby. I don't assume from his description as a hermit that he lived in total seclusion: there was an overlap between monasticism and hermitages at this time, the latter being an official part of the religious establishment, and monasteries sometimes evolved from hermitages, as at Skellig Michael. Anyway, the passage is now fine. qp10qp 16:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Additional responses below.

• "Apart from the comments about the "bretwalda" tag . . . ." See next.
• "Æthelbald seems to have reasserted his authority . . . ." I have added a paragraphy about overlordship, and since the evidence for this relationship between kings is often derived from charters it seemed appropriate to add the explanation about charters at that point. I hope this expansion addresses these two concerns.

More responses to follow. Mike Christie (talk) 10:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Very good idea to combine it with the charter explanation, which covers one of my later points as well. The reader is helped without being patronised. qp10qp 16:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Further responses:

• "A claim made in a ninth-century document . . . ." I've added more details from Kirby's own citation to the Birch and Sawyer cartularies. There's an online version of CS 535, which is now cited; I can't find an online version of S 1782, and I don't have either Birch or Sawyer. I've added a note to Talk:Æthelbald of Mercia#More future research to track this as a future research task; I hope that suffices for now.

I've looked at Kirby, and I think he gives enough detail to add a little to the article, which I've taken the liberty of doing–in particular, mentioning that the document was a list of benefactions from the abbey at Gloucester.qp10qp 00:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• ""Boniface sent the letter to Ecgberht . . . ." The original statement in Kirby is: "Boniface wrote to Ecgberht, archbishop of York, authorizing him to amend the letter in any way he thought desirable"; this and the subsequent note about Herefrith are both referenced to the original texts of Boniface's letters in Dorothy Whitelock's "English Historical Documents". I don't have access to EHD, so I haven't been able to expand on this. Let me know if you think that's a problem. I have added another note to the future research section mentioning this, as I may get hold of a copy of EHD eventually.

Checking Kirby, I think part of the fault is his in not making it absolutely clear, but his wording just about convinces me that Boniface wanted Ecgberht to amend the letter as necessary before Herefrith read it to Aethelbald. That would make perfect sense. However, I'd agree that there's no justification to change your wording in the article on that basis: a little ambiguity must remain, I suppose.qp10qp 00:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• "A subsequent letter of Boniface's to Cuthbert . . . ." I have also tweaked this text. It's Kirby's personal judgement that Boniface was implying that Cuthbert should hold a synod; Kirby is enough of an authority that I think I can just say "seems clear" and cite Kirby, without mentioning in the text that this is Kirby's opinion specifically.

Fine. qp10qp 00:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• "Although there are particular mentions of Æthelbald's influence on church affairs . . . ." I don't have anything I can cite on this, but I don't think it's an automatic deduction from the evidence. Boniface was an elder statesman of European religious politics at this time, according to an opinion I received from an expert on this period. Boniface's letter to Æthelbald may be evidence of Boniface's scope of influence more than Æthelbald's. It's an interesting question, though, and I've added another note to the talk page to be on the lookout for more on the topic.

I suppose so. John of Worcester, presumably basing the information on a lost local version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, says that Cuthbert was bishop of Hereford before he was archbishop of Canterbury: well, of all the places to come from! That's Mercian heartland (also very near Worcester, so John may have had access to a Worcester or Hereford chronicle). I think that any influence of Boniface was intertwined with that of the rulers he worked with; for example, in one letter, he admits that he will get nowhere without the assistance of Pippin. Boniface possibly identifies Aethelbald with the Carolingian secular powers because there is extant an insertion, though it is contested, to his letter to Ecgberht which mentions Charles Martel's former misbehaviours in the same breath as Aethelbald's.

I'm still intrigued why Boniface writes to the archbishop of York about Aethelbald and not to the archbishop of Canterbury: could it be that he thinks Cuthbert is Aethelbald's man? Well, all this is musing, but there are ways of adding possibilities to articles without adding theories or original thought: for example, a mention of Boniface's simultaneous involvement with English and Frankish leaders, or of Ecgberht's link with the papacy (he was invested at Rome), or that Cuthbert might have been bishop of Hereford could be made without going any further. But I'm content with your response, and so you can leave it to me to have a little go at that myself, since I have found some sources (I'll be subtle; just a phrase here and there). qp10qp 00:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• "Æthelbald had Mercian royal blood . . . ." I think this is now dealt with.

That's everything you had listed. Please let me know what you think of the current state of the article. Thanks.

Support. I'm very impressed with the editor's professional responses and his determination to make this article the best it can be.qp10qp 00:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk) 15:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support changed vote from above. All of the fixes I thought were needed have been made. This is now a fine article. Congrats --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support Comments I'll probably support with the addition of the citation requested. I'm not sure I understand Kirby's interpretation "that since Bede was writing during Æthelbald's reign, the original seven he listed were essentially those kings who could be seen as prototypes of Æthelbald in their domination of Southumbrian England." Southumbria was the Northern part of Mercia, how does this connect with domination of Wessex? DrKiernan 12:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added a citation as requested. It covers the sentence below it, too.

On your point above, "Southumbria" in this context means England south of the Humber, and if I were Mike, I would remove the term "Southumbrian" or "Southumbria" from the article altogether in favour of "south of the Humber", since unlike "Northumbria" it will mean little to most readers.^{Yes, I do agree. DrKiernan 16:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)}

Kirby analyses the complexities like this:

"Bede, Aethelbald’s older contemporary, describes the extent of Aethelbald’s power when he records in 731 that all the kingdoms south of the Humber, together with their rulers, were subject to him. The probability is that Bede’s world was profoundly influenced by Aethelbald's southern imperium, which must have been a decisive factor in contemporary political and ecclesiastical life, and it cannot be without significance that the geographical extent of the earlier hegemonies of Bede’s seven overlords of the southern kingdoms—all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms south of the Humber—is defined essentially in terms of the contours of Mercian political domination under Aethelbald. Consequently, Aelle, Ceawlin, Aethelbald and Raedwald were all seen as prototypes of Aethelbald, and if the Northumbrian kings had exercised power over kings south of the Humber their position had to be delineated in the same way. In other words, these earlier hegemonies have been largely cast in the mould of the situation current in the early eighth century. Hence, perhaps, the apparent ‘double meaning’ of bretwalda which Patrick Wormald detected—'at once southumbrian and pan-British'." (Kirby, 2000: 18-19) qp10qp 16:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed; to the general reader, it's a piece of technical jargon. I've reworded it. Thanks for the support, by the way, DrKiernan. qp, I'll be working on more of your points later today, I hope. Mike Christie (talk) 17:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support A very interesting read, and the level of research on such a historically vague subject is impressive. More please. Ceoil 02:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

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.