Talk:Offa of Mercia

Looking for a second opinion regarding this paragraph: "In his authoritative history, Anglo-Saxon England, Sir Frank M. Stenton argued that Offa was perhaps the greatest king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the proof of his ability obscured by the lack of a historian to describe his achievements. "No other Anglo-Saxon king ever regarded the world at large with so secular a mind or so acute a political sense," wrote Stenton."

A) Should it even be in the article,

B) And if so, should it be at the very end, or second to last as it is now? Everyking 14:00, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Mixed feelings, it's somebody's opinion and is a bit meaningless to tell the truth, but it does state that it's an opinion in the text. I don't think Offa was the greatest of the AS kingdoms but then this isn't about my opinion is it? -- Graham :) | Talk 14:03, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Actually Frank Stenton is usually right about these things (in my opinion anyway) and reads Dark Ages history with a very shrewd eye. I will have a read of what else he has to say on the subject and see if I can add a little more of substance to this notion and maybe clarify it a bit. user:sjc

Ah yes. He has a fair bit to say about the significance of Offa quite early on, and makes the salient point that it is only at the point at which Offa comes to power that there is a transition to centralised governance: [..] the endorsement represents a real distinction between the primitive government of the local kingdoms and the beginnings of administrative routine in a court which had become the political centre of England south of the Humber. He establishes his ideological primacy by changing the style by which he designates himself mid reign from rex Merciorum to rex Anglorum and rex totus Angliorum patriae (he wasn't since he only controlled some of them but he is making a sophisticated political point). Stenton goes on to make some play of the scale and significance of Offa's Dyke, a major boundary defining earthwork which must have consumed fabulous amounts of manhours and resources to construct. etc. Stenton also makes the point that his international relationships were firmly established with a concordat with Charlemagne, and he makes great play of the fact that he does not allow Charlemagne to push him around. Frankly i think Frank makes his point very well having read into it, and it is a valid and sensible opinion to have in the article. user:sjc

Stenton is definitely an authoritative source, and I can see justification for keeping the paragraph, but in the intro it already says: "Prior to the rise of Wessex in the 9th century, he was arguably the most powerful and successful of the Anglo-Saxon kings." I just don't want the article to sound as though it's nothing but the assessments made in a 1940s book. I would want to keep the paragraph if there was a different opinion from some other historian, and then we could group them together as "Historical assessments of Offa's reign". Everyking 17:01, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, if anything its the weakness of the first paragraph which concerns me also; it introduces surmise unnecessarily. It doesn't really set the scene for what is to follow. Let me sleep on it and see whether we can't do better than this. user:sjc

As the person who wrote the original passage (& provided the quote from Sir Frank), I added the qualification in order to pre-empt the objection, "But what about Alfred the Great?" Offa's contributions aren't better known because he had no Bede or Asser to document his deeds; his reign is recorded in the acts of a few charters, some letters with Charlemagne & the Pope, & about a dozen entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Adding that opinion helps to indicate this imbalance exists. -- llywrch 18:05, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but I wish we come up with some way of saying this without leaning so heavily on Stenton. We could say something like: "The record of Offa's deeds suggests that he was one of the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and possibly the greatest (as was argued by the mid-20th century historian Frank Stenton), but his importance has sometimes been neglected by history due to the lack of a contemporary historian to properly chronicle his reign." Everyking 18:36, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I was under the impression that by reporting what Stenton says, we follow the guidelines for NPOV. That way, we don't fall into endless arguments over who was the most important king of the period in England or Britain. And as Stenton is considered an authority on Anglo-Saxon history, his opinion carries far more weight than, say mine. -- llywrch 21:19, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Certainly we do, I just don't like the way it sounds. My alternative still reports what Stenton says, just in summarized form, instead of as the focus of an entire paragraph. Everyking 21:28, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Try Keynes on England, 700-900 in New Cambridge Mediaeval History, or Brown and Farr, Mercia: an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Europe if you're looking for a more recent perspective. But they do pretty much agree with Stenton; and, quite honestly, if you're looking to assess an AS king, Stenton's the place to go.

Stenton's work is very important, but it is not the be all and end all. I would certainly recommend Keynes in NCMH. This article seems to have inherited some of the teleolgy of Stenton. He was always looking towards the creation of "England", and cast Offa as a "statesman". I'm going to have a think about this article and see if I can work these things out. Harthacanute 12:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I now think the info on Stenton's perspective definitely needs to be in the article, but it should also be balanced out by other perspectives, of course. Everyking 12:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've rearranged a lot of this in the hope that it's now more usable. I think something on Keynes' view needs including as that is the most recent understanding. I've left Stenton's view in several places, but I agree that it's important that this is a balanced page about Offa rather than "Stenton's view of Offa". Harthacanute 13:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Offa and Islam

I hesitate to ask this, because I'm worried that, as so often happens on Wikipedia, it might result in the issue coming to occupy a far more prominent place in the article than it deserves, but—do we really want the theory that Offa was Moslem and its opposing viewpoint being given such equal weight when they're mentioned? My understanding (and I'm far from an expert on the Anglo-Saxon period) is that this theory is given pretty short shrift by specialists of the period; if this is so, the article should say so. If I'm mistaken and it's not so, then it needs to be backed up better than the article, as the external link on the subject leads only to a vaguely crackpot-sounding essay that provides no references for its assertions other than having "asked several Englishmen (male and female alike)" for their opinions (I'm very curious as to a female Englishman's opinion!), and whose spelling and punctuation do not do anything to shore up its credibility. Binabik80 16:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely. I'm working on a PhD on eighth- and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon coinage, and no serious scholar of the period would take this theory seriously for a second. The one piece of pertinent evidence belongs to a completely different but no less fascinating tradition of monetary and economic interaction, and should be taken on those terms. For all that this case illustrates how people can (mis)interpret the evidence to suit their own ends, it would definitely be safer to remove any reference to Offa's 'conversion'. Arichis 10:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Coin images

These rather obstruct the article's contents at the moment. I'd suggest that, if they are to be kept, that only one side is displayed, with a link to the reverse in the image caption. I'll be bold and change them in a day or so if there's no objections. --Whamilton42 18:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Arabic text on the coin

i just want to make a correction regarding a piece of information that was mentioned in the article , the author said "Offa Rex is centred, though the moneyer clearly had no understanding of Arabic as the Arabic text is upside down" . My mother language is Arabic and surely anyone who knows Arabic can easily notice that this is not true, the Arabic text on the back of the coin is not upside down. Arabic language didn't undergo dramatic changes over the centuries and anyone who knows Arabic can understand the meaning of the words written. I am here not implying that offa was Muslim or anything else, I am just correcting a piece of information for the sake of accuracy fellowhuman november 2006

Fair point: I hadn't noticed that. But the Latin text is upside down in relation to the surrounding Arabic. User:Arichis 19:34, 23 November 2006