Talk:Henry the Blind

sourcing

Maybe useful https://books.openedition.org/pulg/1161

Genealogy

... trees should be made to reflect the work they illustrate. I agree.

But of the 17 names in this tree (not counting the subject's), only three are found in the work it is meant to illustrate. Meanwhile, the four cousins, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew who make up c. 25% of the article's content are nowhere to be found in that tree.

So the brief question, for a brief answer, is: how exactly does this tree illustrate this work? Surtsicna (talk) 11:54, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

It is good if we agree on a principal. As we have discussed this at length I am sure you realize that my words which you quote ("trees should be made to reflect the work they illustrate") would mean in this case that custom-made family trees should be made for a specific Wikipedia article, and do not need to slavishly follow any specific tree in a book. Books will often be making specific points which might not match the ones we are making with such trees.

As a general rule though, the way other editors are using the ahnentafel is a bit different, because it is not meant to indicate relative importance, not meant to make any specific point. It is a neutral collection of links to related articles, based on a simple logic, and I do find (as a reader and editor) that this is often useful in short medieval profiles. WP policy might suggest that we should not have so many short profiles, and so we should merge them into family articles, but families are over-lapping groups, and also human nature is always going to push us in the direction of having short bios for medieval dynasty members. If we did merge them, presumably you'd see no problem with this number of generations being in one article. But because we can't really merge most of them, these tables help keep tabs on the links.

Looking at this specific article, I have no general opposition to cases where you make a special effort to make an appropriate family tree, though missing the article topic's son just to make a point is not something I can agree with. Also, because it is very time-consuming to make these tables, it is not reasonable to threaten other Wikipedians with quick deletions of material unless they make such charts quickly, just because you prefer them. Ahnentafels are useful without being as ambitious as you genealogies about making points.

If you are thinking of making a genealogical chart again then I honestly feel this is a case that deserves to show quite a few ancestors, because this specific article is about a man who became heir to a number of inter-linked families. The two Saxon Bernhards are not very important, and as far I know, neither is Clementia. Ida and first husband, and Regelinde and her father, are important because it is proposed, for example by Michel Margue, that these are the sources of lordship of Durbuy and La Roche, and the advocacy of Stavelot which went with La Roche. https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_2011_num_89_2_8120 These two men were of course related, and represented royal power in the Ardennes during their lives. The two cousins named Henry which you mention both benefited from the family link to them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

So it doesn't. Surtsicna (talk) 12:40, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Although it has not had a Wikipedia editor come along and try to make decisions about people to add or subtract, something which might not lead to a better result, it does already help illustrate the article just by being a neutral logical listing. Removing it would make the article worse.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:51, 30 June 2021 (UTC) (edit conflict) ADDED: Trying to make a custom-made tree (for example deciding Godefrey de Boullion's father's family is not important, and focusing on his mother) is potentially more controversial, and can't be justified just by saying books exist which focus on this or that group of relatives. In the case above, although I suggested some ideas, a custom-made tree should not be that different from the ahnentafel, because the Luxembourg, Namur, and Ardenne lines are all important.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:18, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Before this particular editor came along and challenged it, this chart contained a lot of spurious and even fictitious connections. It still contains them. That is what we get from "neutral logical" copy-pasted one-size-fits-all charts in 12th-century biographies. It is only a matter of time before a diligent genealogy enthusiast finds this plucked chicken of a chart and decides to fill the missing gaps with whatever they can find online, since reliable sources are obviously not something to bother citing. Surtsicna (talk) 13:11, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Well "stuff could happen" is a pretty weak argument, but in any case as a community I think we are lot more united against that type of problem? FWIW if we all work on the article content in the normal way and see the Ahenentafels as tables which should reflect information in the linked-to articles, such insertions should become increasingly difficult to slip through. There is a lot of work to do to build up better sourcing in these short articles on medieval people. Each article that gets properly sourced becomes an article which will be easier to keep an eye on. But there is no point trying to fix this problem by massive deletions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:18, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

It has literally happened thousands of times already, so I trust my clairvoyance. As a community we were united against the creep of this template and yet it happened. Ahnentafeln are poor tables, never serving to illustrate the topic and content of an article (as exemplified by this one here), but merely as something for editors to play with for their own amusement. Surtsicna (talk) 13:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes it will keep happening, like many such problems, but we can work on that well if we all have a clear and united approach, and if the article information and sourcing keeps improving. Deleting these templates does not achieve better shared clarity of priorities, and it does not make articles better sourced. It makes it harder to work out where to begin. Also I do not like template creep but many of the articles where these tables are used are stubs, or not far from it, so that is not the issue. It is just a questions of getting the normal work done to build these articles up. Anyway, for this article I really can't see any way to argue that his ancestors are not relevant which is what you copy-pasted edit summaries imply.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:56, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

If you really cannot see it, I trust you will have no trouble explaining, in the article prose rather than here, how Henry's (supposed) descent from the dukes of Saxony is relevant to understanding his life. Surtsicna (talk) 15:11, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I've already explained what I think. I am only one editor but if you are asking to make a custom-made tree without them, I am not going to complain. I would be happy if a link between the two Fredericks was made visible, and if the links to the cousins of Durbuy and La Roche was made clear. But if we are not making a new tree for now, then please for now leave them, because there is no verifiability or notability problem and the ahnentafel is clearly not trying to say who is important. Also keep in mind the article itself will be added to. I have named two publications above on this talk page including a monograph (unfortunately a bit old). If you don't make a tree then at some point I might. I find the tables useful for the building up phase which many profiles from this period are in.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:22, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Possible tree we could use

Feedback from anyone? Surtsicna when we make a custom-made tree we are always "risking" being a bit creative which is allowed for graphic representation, but still... Because of our discussion, and as part of the process of thinking it through, I have made a tree in my sandbox without really being sure if we should use it. The relationships shown are based on my reading of secondary literature which sees the Dukes as important predecessors in the Ardennes area (including Durbuy, La Roche). This presentation also helps show how the two relevant parts of the House of Ardennes link. The two people at the top are Carolingian (and cousins).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:25, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

drafting tree

Charles, Duke of Lower Lotharingia (Carolingian) Cunegunda (House of Ardenne) Count Gozelon Albert I, Count of Namur Ermengarde Count Godefrid "the captive" Count Sigefrid Gozelon, Duke of Lower Lotharingia Albert II, Count of Namur Regelinde Count Frederic Henry I of Durbuy Albert III, Count of Namur Ida Frederic, Duke of Lower Lotharingia Gilbert, Count of Luxembourg Henry I of La Roche Dukes of Limbourg Conrad, Count of Luxembourg Godefrid, Count of Namur Ermensinde of Luxembourg Henry the Blind

I have not researched these connections so I cannot contribute much, Andrew Lancaster, but graphically this is very interesting. I am afraid, however, that the the colors might be its biggest flaw too; see MOS:COLOR for information about accessibility issues. But it is certainly more vivid, more illustrative, and more to-the-point than what we currently have, even if (unfortunately) uncited, so I am definitely keen on seeing it in the article. Surtsicna (talk) 16:31, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I was not thinking of the colour distinction as the main message, but I did try to make the colours contrast, and it would be easy to tweak borders to contrast the families in an additional way. (I just noticed the borders are not currently standaridized.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:14, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I've played with it a bit. Unfortunately I also found a noticed I missed a generation, which makes the tree less neat.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:39, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Henry's relationship with his predecessors and neighbouring rulers

Albert II of Namur Regelinde Frederick of Luxembourg Henry I of Durbuy Albert III of Namur Ida Frederick of Lower Lotharingia Gilbert of Luxembourg Godfrey of Durbuy Conrad I of Luxembourg Herman of Salm Henry II of Durbuy Henry I of La Roche Godfrey I of Namur Ermesinde I of Luxembourg William of Luxembourg Henry II of La Roche Henry the Blind Alice of Namur Conrad II of Luxembourg Ermesinde II of Luxembourg Baldwin V of Hainaut

Here is my take. It includes only the relationships with people who preceded him as ruler of Luxembourg, Namur, La Roche, and Durbuy. I'll see if I can expand it to include all the dukes you have, but I am afraid adding 4 more generations might be excessive. But if they are relevant, they should certainly be mentioned in the chart as well as in the prose. Surtsicna (talk) 11:43, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I should explain that the reason I did not try to list more counts in La Roche or Durbuy is because my reading of Margue is that these relationships (which can be found for example in Rousseau's book about the dynasty's charters) are only speculative. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that I understand from Rousseau's biography is that the Namur line had been following a policy of linking themselves to the Ardennes, and this is why the showing the House of Ardenne as something linking several relatives seems illustrative of something relevant. There was in fact another link of course, because Henry's daughter married into that old family's line of inheritance once again. In terms of appearance, I kind of like the boxes which I copied off the Hawaian tree discussed on the template talk. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

draft 3

Here is another attempt. I made it my goal to show the inheritances discussed in the article and how they were redistributed.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:57, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

The inheritances of Henry and his daughter

Gozelon, Duke of Lower Lotharingia "House of Ardenne" Count Sigfried Albert II, Count of Namur Regelinde Count Frederic Henry I of Durbuy Albert III, Count of Namur Ida Frederic, Duke of Lower Lotharingia Gilbert, Count of Luxembourg Male line ended Dukes of Limbourg, Counts of Arlon Henry I of La Roche Conrad, Count of Luxembourg Male line ended Godefrid, Count of Namur Ermensinde of Luxembourg Male line ended Henry the Blind Alice Theobald I, Count of Bar Ermensinde II Waleran III, Duke of Limburg, Count of Arlon Cunigunda of Lorraine Baldwin Count of Hainaut, Flanders and Namur House of Luxembourg Counts of Luxembourg and Arlon Dukes of Limbourg Lords of Hainaut, Flanders and Namur

Definitely an improvement! Thanks, Andrew Lancaster. I have some concerns. It is my understanding, based on our article about Frederick and the fmg entry, that the counts of Arlon descended not from Ida but from Frederick's first marriage. It is not clear to me what information the colors should convey; at first I thought peach was for the House of Luxembourg and tropical indigo for the House of Namur; only then I realized it referred to the descent of the counties of Namur and Luxembourg. But in that case, should Regelinda and Gozelon be in peach? They did not rule or transmit Luxembourg, did they? And finally, "male line ended" right below Henry I of Durbuy and Henry I of La Roche suggests to me that they had no sons, but I am not sure I can offer a better solution. Surtsicna (talk) 11:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Reasonable comments. Indeed that peach colour changes function over the generations a bit, and "male line ended" was just the latest attempt to explain without making the tree too complicated. Those are presentation issues, so we can play around. Most urgent is to fix the Ida issue.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:47, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I guess the colour scheme can be interpreted as (1) box style shows the two main county inheritances (2) the colours are used more loosely for anyone associated with either of those two lines? Concerning the dead end lines, a purist solution is simply to add the missing generations but it would make it a significantly bigger tree.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:49, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Article name

Should we change the article name Srnec, Dr. Grampinator, Surtsicna? For example Henry the blind or Henry, Count of Namur and Luxembourg? The fact that he has a well-known byname seems to be something we should make use of to avoid confusion? He was the count of two important counties, and at the time Luxembourg was not necessarily the most important. Nor is it clear what the numbering system refers to. The numbering system we are using does correspond to one used by Michel Parisse in his very often-cited article on the House of Ardenne, but in the context of that article it refers to a number of family-leading Henrys within the dynasty of the Luxembourg (Sigefried) branch of that family, which is a bit complicated and not clear in our articles. The sequence there is Henry V, Duke of Bavaria, Henry VII, Duke of Bavaria, Henry III, Count of Luxembourg, etc. I suppose we can use that system, but it probably requires more explanation on WP. At the moment a reader would need to cross reference somewhere else in order to understand the numbers. I am not sure that the first two were really called counts of Luxembourg though, so I suppose there is a risk we would be over-simplifying? How important are the numbers? I don't think Henry's are normally numbered for Namur. The other one was Henry "of Vianden" who was not really in any main line.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:11, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I vote for Henry the Blind (with the "b" capitalized). The analogy is Henry the Lion. Dr. Grampinator (talk) 16:36, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I have not read up on Henry, and Google Books search results confirm neither "Henry the Blind" nor "Henry IV of Luxembourg". It is far from clear to me which name is common in scholarship. Surtsicna (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Current title is fine by me, but Henry the Blind also works if the slighting of Namur is getting to you. It does seem to be the usual way to refer to him, but the numeral IV is not uncommon. Srnec (talk) 22:51, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

No the slighting of Namur is not getting to me, and I have the resources at home to trace what the IV means, but the aim has to be clarity for readers as well. I don't think a big explanation about those numbering systems would make the article better. I guess we can do Henry the Blind.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

An explanation of the numbering could fit in a footnote and would be interesting. Srnec (talk) 22:34, 20 July 2021 (UTC)