Talk:Ælfric of Eynsham

Untitled
Article was originally at "Aefric", however all but the first reference to his name calls him "Aelfric", and another poster has commented that "Aefric" is incorrect. Moved article to "Aelfric" The Anome
 * ...which is how most readers would look for him. Fortunately, a redirect will bring the normal reader here, to this owlishly renamed entry heading. I look forward to seeing OEconomy as an entry heading... --Wetman 12:57, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Moved
The page has now been moved from AElfric to Ælfric. Links from Aefric, Aelfric and AElfric have been updated/created. Btw. A and E are NEVER both capitalized in an otherwise lowercase word unless combined in a ligature (Æ)!!! Aelfric, not AElfric, is the correct title if the ligature is not used/not available. --Krun 22:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

What's his name?
I've read some of Ælfric's works, but was unfamiliar with the name Ælfric Grammaticus and the combination of the Old English Ælfric with the Latin Grammaticus seems jarring. I decided to check what he's called in some authoritative sources.

In the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (a source of this article) we find:


 * ÆLFRIC, called the "Grammarian" (c. 955-1020?)...

In the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) the entry is:


 * Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham Also known as "the Grammarian"...

In the Library of Congress catalog, the author entry is:


 * Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham.

In the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England he is listed as:


 * Ælfric 94 (Male): Abbot of Eynsham, 1005-c.1010; author....
 * (The number 94 means he's 94th of the 115 Ælfrics in the database)

It seems that Ælfric Grammaticus is not a widely accepted form of his name, and either Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham or Aelfric of Eynsham would be preferred titles for this article. In other articles it is common to refer to an Abbot as "'Person' of 'Place'" (see, for example, the entries for the Abbots of Iona.

Following that model, Ælfric of Eynsham seems to be the preferred name for this article. Any comments? --SteveMcCluskey 23:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Adding to the research, I checked the British Library catalogue and found contradictory results. The majority of the 111 entries including the world Ælfric list him as AELFRIC, Grammaticus, Abbot of Eynsham.  However, the modern entries tend to drop the grammaticus; of the thirteen most recent entries (since 1976); 8 give the form Aelfric; 2 give Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham; and 3 relate to Aelfric in different ways.


 * Since Aelfric Grammaticus was not used by the British Library cataloguers since they cagalogued a 1972 publication. It looks as if that form, like mediæval, is obsolescent and does not belong in a modern encyclopedia.  --SteveMcCluskey 17:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Digging a bit further in the British Library web page I found the following authoritative statement (the BL follows the LOC here). They apparently only encode the name entries with ASCII rather than Unicode, so the Æ ligature is represented there as Ae. I take this as pretty reliable evidence that his article should be headed either Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham or Ælfric of Eynsham.


 * Cross-references - All Names - Aelfric, The Grammarian, Abbot of Eynsham


 * System number 000177342
 * Heading Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Aelfric, Grammaticus, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Aelfric, The Grammarian, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury
 * Seen from Elfrike, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Älfrik, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Aelfrik, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Alfric, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Alfricus, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Elfric, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Seen from Aelfricus, Abbot of Eynsham
 * Source Data Found Author’s A Saxon treatise concerning the old and new Testament ... 1623.
 * Source Data Found The Old English version of the Heptateuch, 1990:p. vii (Älfrik) p. 13 (Aelfrik) p. 15 (Abbot Elfrike)
 * Source Data Found BM cat.(hdg.: Aelfric, Grammaticus, Abbot of Eynsham; variant: Alfric; ref.: Alfricus)
 * Source Data Found NUC pre-56(hdg.: Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham; usage: Aelfric, Elfric, Elfrike, Aelfricus; Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury)
 * Source Data Found DNB(Ælfric, abbot, called Grammaticus, fl. 1006; celebrated author and translator; abbot of Ensham; no ground for identifying him as a bishop or archbishop; pupil of Æthelwold; writings include: Homilies; Treatise on the old and new testaments; Heptateuchus; Life of St. Æthelwold; Excerpts from St. Æthelwold’s Rule of St. Benedict; Canons; Quando dividis Chrisma; Latin grammar and glossary; Colloquium; and De temporibus anni)

--SteveMcCluskey 17:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I moved this article to Ælfric Grammaticus. However, I must confess that this was simply because that was the name given in the existing article (from EB 1911). My interest is really in the archbishop from whom he required disambiguation. Later, I added alternative names from more modern sources and one of these is probably to be preferred. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England gives Ælfric of Eynsham as his main article (although he is confusingly referred to as Ælfric of Cerne in other articles). A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain gives Ælfric the Homilist. Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire gives Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham. I vote for the descriptive, Ælfric of Eynsham. As this seems to be common usage, it's better than the titular version. Walgamanus 20:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * thanks for the answer; I see agreement here. I'll change him to Ælfric of Eynsham once I have a few hours to spend tidying up the links.  --SteveMcCluskey 00:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Aethelmaer
The link to Aethelmaer does not come out at Aethelmaer the Stout (se Greatta}, son of Aethelweard the Historian, but as Bishop Aethelmaer the brother of Stigand. Some mistake surely ? Streona (talk) 01:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

'Immaculate birth of the Virgin'
When I found this article, it included this statement: "Ælfric denied the immaculate birth of the Virgin (Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii.466)" This seems to be based on a common misunderstanding of what the Immaculate Conception (not immaculate birth) of the Virgin means - it means that she was conceived without Original Sin, not that she, like Jesus, had a virginal conception. Thorpe's translation of the cited passage says:

"What shall we say of the birth-tide of Mary, save that she was begotten by father and by mother as other persons, and was born on the day that we call the eighth of September? Her father was named Joachim, and her mother Anna, pious persons according to the old law; but we will not write further concerning them, lest we fall into any error."

This clearly says nothing about whether or not she was born with original sin, but does state that she was conceived through sexual union. Therefore, I removed the statement. Steorra (talk) 18:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Title of Article
The title used makes this article very difficult for other editors to wikify (link their pages into). Where do I find the Saxon AE on my keyboard? I don't have the time or the inclination to waste time working out how to do this, so I am forced to cut and paste the word from this site directly into my page requiring a link. That is absurd. I fully support precision in getting the facts right, but this should be within the article - the title serves a broader purpose, as a handle for picking up this article. Pedantry must feature strongly within all Wikipedia articles, hooray to that, but not surely in the titles where it interferes with practicality. I suggest a new title of "Aelfric" - what's wrong with that? The title of the article on Socrates is not spelled in classical Greek letters, so why does this have to be spelled in Quasi-Saxon? (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 09:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC))
 * That's a good question, but it turns out you can type Aelfric of Eynsham, which redirects to Ælfric of Eynsham. BTW, if you're a US PC user, you can just set your keyboard to the US International keyboard and a whole range of options open to you.  --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:16, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Ælfric Bata
Created with DNB text from a redlink here, just to get it linked in and disambiguated [i hope] Cygnis insignis (talk) 01:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

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