Talk:Æthelred I of Wessex

Incorrect coin
A message on OTRS told us the coin Image:Athelred.gif is not Ethelred I of Wessex but Ethelred the Unready. I have absolutely no idea whether it is so. David.Monniaux 22:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think its either, coins of Ethelred I are almost non-existent and Ethelred the Unready's portrait on coins is usually quite distinctive with sticking up hair. The writing on this picture is too pixelated and distorted to interpret and the source taken from en.wikipedia says it all! There is a very good site here to see pictures of the coins of both rulers, but you really need a decent reference book to establish who this image might be. Mighty Antar 01:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe this coin is a Hand Type coin of (A)ethelred II the Unread(y); an (A)ethelred I portrait coin is distinctively different when one compares the two coins in "COINS OF ENGLAND & THE UNITED KINGDOM" aka Spink Standard Catalogue of British Coins, issued annually. Charley 75.7.6.33 07:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

~John N. Cross146.90.81.79 (talk) ==== Misc ==== Added direct link through to DNB Wikisource in references. Smd49 (talk) 07:11, 30 September 2012 (UTC) The coin is in fact an example of Aethelred II's Helmet type. Spinks 'Coins of England and the United Kingdom' (51st edition, 2015), catalogue number S.1152. John Nicholas Cross. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.90.81.79 (talk) 13:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The image has since been replaced by one of a coin of Æthelred (the first). --Mirokado (talk) 20:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 23 December 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. It is not entirely clear that the page should include "King", but following the move this naming is aligned with Æthelbald, King of Wessex, Æthelberht, King of Wessex, Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, and Ecgberht, King of Wessex, some of which are featured articles. If necessary a new multimove request can be initiated to gauge consensus for removing "King" from the titles. Dekimasu よ! 22:41, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Æthelred of Wessex → Æthelred I, King of Wessex – 1. The new title will be similar to the article titles for his elder brothers, Æthelbald, King of Wessex and Æthelberht, King of Wessex. 2. Æthelred of Wessex could refer to other men such as Æthelred the Unready. 3. He is not referred to as Æthelred of Wessex in reliable sources. He is shown as Æthelred [Ethelred] (d. 871) in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Æthelred I K. of Wessex in Stenton's Anglo-Saxon England; Æthelred I, king of Wessex 865-871 in A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain, Yorke's Wessex in the Early Middle Ages and in Abels' Alfred the Great; Æthelred king of Wessex in Keynes and Lapidge's Alfred the Great; Aethelred, king of the West Saxons in Kirby's The Earliest English Kings. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:36, 23 December 2018 (UTC) --Relisting.  SITH   (talk)   12:52, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support, to be consinstent with other articles on the Kingfs of Wessex. Dimadick (talk) 11:59, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd favour Æthelred, King of Wessex without a numeral. Since the second Æthelred was King of England, there is no ambiguity. – Swa cwæð Ælfgar (talk) 14:38, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The change of area does not remove all ambiguity. Edward I was king of England, Edward VII of Britain and Ireland, Edward VIII of Britain and NI. The first Æthelred is commonly referred to by academic historians as Æthelred I and the Unready sometimes as Æthelred II, e.g. Pauline Stafford, "Fathers and Daughters: The Case of Æthelred II". In Naismith and Woodman eds, Writing, Kingship and Power in Anglo-Saxon England, 2018. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * After checking my books, I must admit you are right about the prevalence of "Æthelred I" in the sources. I was sure that the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia used no numeral, but there it is on page 537: "ÆTHELRED I". I'll strike my previous comment. – Swa cwæð Ælfgar (talk) 12:08, 24 December 2018 (UTC)


 * "Æthelred I of Wessex" is more in line with the MOS and practice around Wikipedia. Srnec (talk) 21:05, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Relisting note: as of relisting, two support Æthelred I, King of Wessex whereas one supports Æthelred I of Wessex. Relisting to clarify consensus as different arguments for both have been applied.    SITH   (talk)   12:52, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not think that "Æthelred I of Wessex" is more in line with Wikipedia practice. Stephen, King of England and John, King of England are in line with "Æthelred I, King of Wessex". Names such as Eleanor of Aquitaine follow reliable sources, whereas no reliable source has "Æthelred I of Wessex" so far as I can discover. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:13, 30 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Support adding “King” to the title, for RECOGNISABILITY. WP:NCROY does not enjoy consensus. NCROY is over steeped in the style of nobility-diplomacy jargon and does not make for good article titles. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:17, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose, just to be clear. (There is inconsistency in how kings of Wessex are titled at WP, so I do not care anymore how this one is titled.) Forget NCROY, just look around. John and Stephen are the only Kings of England to be so titled. Every other one is "Name # of England". There is no King of France with a title like this. I have no idea what diplomatic jargon Smokey is talking about. As for the kings of Wessex, this format only starts with Egbert. All the rest are "Name of Wessex", including the FA Ine of Wessex. Likewise no articles with "King of Mercia" in the title. I have no idea why Dudley has been making these proposals piecemeal so that we end up moving one King of Wessex every few months. Is there an actual logic to this other than to change NCROY as it applies to English monarchs one page at a time? Srnec (talk) 05:50, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * John and Stephen are not the only monarchs with their title in the article name. There is also Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Queen Victoria, both of which are FAs. The reason that I nominate one monarch at a time for change of title is that I look at how the name is shown in reliable sources when I start working on getting the article to FAC. I have not previously seen WP:NCROY and I see that Smec is right that Æthelred I of Wessex is more in line with this convention which leaves out the title when there is an ordinal. I prefer Æthelred I, King of Wessex as it is clearer for readers and I think names should be based on reliable sources rather than Wikipedia conventions. The current name is unclear and against NCROY and Æthelred I of Wessex would be my second choice. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:19, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree that sourcing has anything to do with it. Neither "Æthelred I of Wessex" nor "Æthelred I, King of Wessex" is his name! Sources can tell us to use Æthelred over Ethelred or to use an ordinal or not, or whether to say he was king of Wessex or England, but they don't tell us whether to say "King Æthelred I of Wessex", "Æthelred I, k. of Wessex", etc. Srnec (talk) 18:23, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * “diplomatic jargon Smokey is talking about“? Historically, European foreign policy has heavily personality based around the kings queens and emperors.  What little records there are are dominated by diplomatic records, correspondence from diplomats.  The diplomat would refer to the King by name, no honorific. A superficial COMMONNAME approach would see Wikipedia do the same, but I think that is a bad idea, because these records are not intending for a broad audience, they were quite controlled is circulation, in their time.  The modern diplomat equivalent is to refer to counties by their capital.  Washington for USA, Paris for France, etc.  My point is to generally support the inclusion of “King” “queen” “emperor” etc, which I think was normal for public audience purposes (few as they have been), and for RECOGNISABILITY for the Wikipedia reader. I haven’t expressed an opinion on inclusion of the numeral I, or the comma. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:03, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I Support
 * Æthelred I, King of Wessex (as proposed).
 * Æthelred, King of Wessex is acceptable,
 * King Æthelred I of Wessex also acceptable;
 * King Æthelred of Wessex also acceptable.
 * I think the “I” is a question of style. It would not have been used at the time, and later sources used it depending on their style.  It may slightly help with recognisability, and it doesn’t hurt. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:09, 1 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Coinage
hello! While translating this article into French, I found this image on Commons (it was badly categorized, like most images from the Portable Antiquities Scheme :/). I think it's a more interesting illustration than the one currently used in the #Coinage subsection, since it shows the parallels between the coins of Burgred and Æthelred. – Swa cwæð Ælfgar (talk) 13:07, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

His Age at Death
Before I update the page to add his age when he died, I thought I would ask if there is some reason that his age is not already listed; forcing readers to do the math themselves? Christopher Rath (talk) 03:41, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Vague line
"Æthelred's reign was important numismatically" is painfully vague; a word or two about what is meant by this would be surely beneficial to readers. Aza24 (talk) 06:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The rest of the paragraph explains it: "Wessex and Mercia were close allies when he became king, and he carried the alliance further by adopting the Mercian Lunettes design, thus creating a unified coinage design for southern England for the first time. The common design foreshadowed the unification of England over the next sixty years and the reform coinage of King Edgar I a century later." I am not clear what else is needed. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:16, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Holy sh–I don't know what's wrong with me. Must have just drawn a blank, yes no issue here of course. Sorry for this pointless thread... Aza24 (talk) 10:03, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 12 December 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 19:22, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Æthelred I, King of Wessex → Æthelred I of Wessex – Per WP:NCROY the format is only used when there is one monarch named X (e.g. John, King of England). The normal format would be (Henry II of France). Векочел (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This point was raised in the previous requested move in 2019 and the consensus was nevertheless for the current title, which is in line with the format of the article titles of his elder brothers. The title is fine and there is no need to change it again. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree the present format is correct; there were Kings of Wessex, Kings of Mercia, Kings of Kent... It helps identify him that his title is "King of Wessex" User:OldeSage


 * Support and move any other affected articles that Dudley Miles hints at. WP:CONSISTENT means broadly, across the whole encyclopedia.  A "micro-consistency" between a trio of articles but against all other handling of similar titles, isn't a consistency, but a larger inconsistency to fix than just one article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:04, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The other articles comply with the rules as they have no ordinal and are thus in line with Stephen, King of England and Anne, Queen of Great Britain. There is no logic in distinguishing between the cases based on the presence or absence on an ordinal. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:16, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support - move to Ethelred I of Wessex. GoodDay (talk) 13:02, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm not sure yet if I'll express an opinion on the requested move, but I would oppose a move to "Ethelred".  Very few sources still use this spelling. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Support We are never going to achieve total consistency in all areas. However "consistency with his brothers" raises even more problems, since we have e.g. John, King of England but his brother is Richard I of England.  I suspect there are other examples on Wikipedia. Æthelred versus Ethelred is a separate issue, let's deal with one problem at a time. PatGallacher (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * See another case of four brothers who were king of Scotland. We have Edgar, King of Scotland, although his brothers are Duncan II of Scotland, Alexander I of Scotland and David I of Scotland. PatGallacher (talk) 15:22, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Most articles (80–90%) about kings (on Wikipedia) are named using the name-number-of-kingdom convention (except for the greats like Alfred, Alexander, Charlemagne etc). And to get consistency we have to start somewhere. LuciusHistoricus (talk) 15:02, 18 December 2021 (UTC)