Talk:Anglo-Saxon dress

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): DMcCune80.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Review
DMcCune80, the article so far sounds good! I think the changes you have made and information you have added has improved the article a great amount. I noticed that a lot of your edits were basic/background information, which is important to include for a better understanding on the topic. Your edits are also unbiased and formal. The only thing I noticed that could be improved is the sentence length. Some of the sentences are a little choppy. Maybe try tying a few together so it flows nicer. Good work!

Who is "Planché"?
Johnbod (talk) 15:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, James Planché - died 1880. I don't think he is an RS these days - nothing else from the 19th century on any aspect of Anglo-Saxon history would be. Please reference the work being cited.  Johnbod (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe I tracked it down to, but the page numbers are still one off, so the person who added these refs may have been using a modern reprint with slightly different pagination. The blogspot source and the Regia Anglorum handbook are also a bit dubius, and likely themselves go back to Gale Crocker. Yngvadottir (talk) 08:26, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Standardized spelling
I often standardize spelling in articles, removing occasional anomalies.

I don't believe I have ever seen an article as evenly split as this one is.

It has "woollen" (UK) and "woolen" (US) in roughly equal numbers. It has "jewellery" (UK) and "jeweled" (US).

It does not have a lot of recognise/recognize class words.

To me personally, UK seems logical and natural, but then I'm Canadian, so ...

For consistency, the contributors should probably settle on something.

Bear in mind that English is the default language of Wikipedia, and so people internationally, from Lithuania or Mongolia let's say, have only a modest amount available in their own languages.

So where are they likely to go? Here. This article exists in no other language. And here we have inconsistency.

Varlaam (talk) 19:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

"They"
I am embarrassed for the project that we even have to discuss this. "They were fastened by brooches at the shoulders, though have sometimes been found as low as the breasts." doesn't make any sense, especially the bolded part. UtherPendrogn, please stop turning perfectly good sentences into garbage.--Adam in MO Talk 17:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree--it makes sense, but it's very British English in an almost archaic way. I have restored your edit for reasons of elegance and legibility. Drmies (talk) 17:35, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the edification. I had no idea. --Adam in MO Talk 21:00, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

"Wakerley Grave"
Associated with the reference to Owen-Crocker concerning Migration Age dress, was this: "Wakerley grave 74". It's now been removed because the editor who converted the reference style mistook it for an undefined book reference. It's the cemetery and grave number of the burial that supports the point. I wasn't sure which cemetery so left the format alone when I went through the Owen-Crocker references, but if possible the point of precision should be incorporated. (Maybe this means we need articles on a whole bunch of excavated cemeteries. I wouldn't be surprised; that's the kind of article we tend to lack). Yngvadottir (talk) 22:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC) ... With a bit of help, I tracked it down in Owen-Crocker and it's back in the article with some explanation. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:40, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Article Evaluation
I am taking a class where we are learning about Wikipedia and how to find and edit articles. I think this article could use more information on who the Saxons were in the lead. it would be nice to see more information on the dress of Women and Children. I also noticed that the picture examples of men's clothes were mostly kings. It talks briefly about embroidery but doesn't say if it is used on their clothes or just on tapestries. DMcCune80 (talk) 17:46, 9 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I've added info to the lead paragraph. Added some cited info to the types of material used for clothing.  Expanded on the sections of Women and Children clothing.

DMcCune80 (talk) 21:56, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Major update
Hi all,

I have been reading more recent academic publications on Anglo-Saxon life and I can see that this article needs a major update. There is a lot information cited from very old sources (Quennell, 1927), (Planche, 1879), and on the plus side, newer sources from an Anglo-Saxon textile scholar (Owen-Crocker, 2004). What I have learned from a recent review of the subject (Own-Crocker, 2011, various archaeological reports from 2000 onward ), is that information from older books and other publications on Anglo-Saxon clothing previously held as fact, is currently being re-evaluated by scholars. Below is a relevant quote from The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (2011)

I recommend an update to this article to reflect newer studies, reports and books. I would like to research this more and re-write the article. Because it would be a major re-write, I will wait to see if anyone has any comments or advice before I get started.

Below is an example of incorrect information in the article.

Lede: "The new Norman rulers had brought fashions from the continent that had a major effect in England. Anglo-Saxon dress had several different periods of transformation and the study of these periods includes examination of individual pieces of clothing, the textiles, and how the clothing was made." "By the time the Normans arrived in the 11th century, the Anglo-Saxon period was closing, so it is impossible for the Normans to have had a major effect on Anglo-Saxon dress, although they did have a major impact on dress after the 11th century. The first sentence is not relevant to Anglo-Saxon clothing."

A lot of the information in the different sections about what men and women wore is stated as fact, but newer studies show that scholars are really not certain what Anglo-Saxon men and women wore on a daily basis. I would like the re-written article to be more reflective of what Anglo-Saxon scholars do know now about Anglo-Saxon dress and I plan to do more reading on the subject in the next month or two, before I consider re-writing the article. MauraWen (talk) 15:08, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Ever since this article (which is indeed not very good) was translated (very badly) into French, more than two years ago, I have been hoping that someone would improve the original, so that I could in turn improve the French equivalent (since I am no specialist in that specific domain and have little inclination or opportunity to get the relevant bibliography). I am very glad to see the day has finally come! It will be very nice to see this article reach a better state. – Swa cwæð Ælfgar (talk) 23:06, 26 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Update complete. I re-wrote the article to provide more detailed information on Anglo-Saxon dress, and to provide information that reflects the most current research on the subject. I removed content from outdated books or popular books without bibliographies (Brooke, Quenell). Some of Planche's information, although scholarly for its time (1879), is no longer considered factual given the current archaeological findings. Anglo-Saxon clothing historians, Owen-Crocker and Walton-Rogers are the best sources on the subject and have both written the most thorough studies of Anglo-Saxon textiles and clothing.


 * Citations for the article were mixed in style, which happens when multiple editors work on an article. I have chosen one style for the re-written article. I believe this simpler style will make it easier for future editors, especially less experienced ones, to add new content with citations. I organized the material chronologically, also to make it easier for editors to add new information. MauraWen (talk) 21:53, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * This looks great, I am a bit short on time these days but I am looking forward to actually reading it! The only thing that bugs me are the citations. It is usual on Wikipedia to give the exact page where the information can be found, whereas you have just provided the book. – Swa cwæð Ælfgar (talk) 18:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree entirely - text looks great but for books you really have to give page numbers. The style I use - book details once at the bottom, then "ref>Qwen-Crocker, 67</ref " is much simpler for newbies to adopt as well. Johnbod (talk) 20:55, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with what you both are saying about the citations. I thought this citation format would be easier for newbie editors to add new content, and I thought it would save time for me re-writing the article. That said, I agree with you that it would have been better if I had provided all the page numbers per citation.  I have sent all but one of the books I used as sources back thru Interlibrary loan, so I cannot correct this immediately.  I can put in another request for the books and if they allow a second checkout of what I have just returned, I will provide the page numbers per citation. MauraWen (talk) 16:41, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * That would be great, thanks. Johnbod (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2019 (UTC)