Talk:Heinrich von Veldeke

Heinrich von Veldeke
This article is called Heinrich von Veldeke (the German version of his name) while the poet's given name is Heinric (or modern: Henderik) van Veldeke (not von). Also in scholarly works his name is usually referred to as Hendrik van Veldeke, for instance in A Literary History of the Low Countries, on page 8 he is referred to as Hendrik van Veldeke all the time. https://books.google.nl/books?id=N1SgcVffQ_MC&pg=PA8&dq=hendrik+van+veldeke&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz-oGCtIXNAhWEuRQKHa9GBHg4FBDoAQghMAI#v=onepage&q=hendrik%20van%20veldeke&f=false

Also in An Introduction to Middle Dutch in Chapter 4 the authors speak only of Hendrik van Veldeke: https://books.google.nl/books?id=vTO55_qF5bgC&pg=PA34&dq=hendrik+van+veldeke&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz-oGCtIXNAhWEuRQKHa9GBHg4FBDoAQgvMAU#v=onepage&q=hendrik%20van%20veldeke&f=false

Same goes for Medieval Dutch Literature in Its European Context: https://books.google.nl/books?id=jCsCVly3IQoC&pg=PA304&dq=hendrik+van+veldeke&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM59X7tYXNAhXHuRQKHUtqBqY4FBDoAQg_MAg#v=onepage&q=hendrik%20van%20veldeke&f=false

As a matter of fact, there's not a single scholarly work in the English language that I could find where the authors refer to Hendrik van Veldeke in the German equivalent.

Could someone please change the title of the article since it's clearly wrong and it suggests Hendrik's native language (by birth) was German, which is absolutely not true. C.Gesualdo (talk) 23:09, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * First of all, you changed his name in bold at the top of the article, but the way you changed it gives him two Dutch names (i.e. "Hendrik van Veldeke (aka: He(y)nric van Veldeke(n), Dutch Hendrik van Veldeke"). If you must make bold changes, at least change the second one to the German version. Second, there is an entire section of this article devoted to his name, and if you read it, you'll see evidence that although English language scholars are split on the subject, most of them prefer the German name. If you couldn't find any sources that use the German name in your search of Google.NL, that's your problem. After all, Google Books is not the only source in the world. Try checking a library. – PeeJay 15:44, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Lol! I wonder how many books on Dutch literature (or Van Veldeke) you have (or read). In any case, he came from Belgium, from a Dutch speaking area. His native language was Dutch, so in that light there's no reason to refer to him with the German version of his name. Secondly, this sentence is complete nonsense: 'the form "Heinrich von" is more commonly encountered in English', as works on Dutch literature refer to him as Hendrik van Veldeke and works on German literature to Heinrich Von. This is of course logical since you're writing on a poet who is referred to in a particular way. But why favor the German way over the Dutch? Like I said, he was born in Belgium and his mother tongue was Dutch. Why refer to his name by any other language then his original name? C.Gesualdo (talk) 16:02, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the majority of scholarly literature on this individual is written from the German perspective. If German sources outnumber Dutch and Belgian sources, those are the ones that take primacy here. And besides, the dude lived in the 12th century, when borders were far more poorly defined; his place of birth may be in Belgium these days, but where it was back then would have been an entirely different country altogether. – PeeJay 16:59, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Where did I say that his place of birth is the point? My point was that his place of birth was in a LANGUAGE AREA that was DUTCH and not German! It's for that reason relevant that he was born in modern day Belgium, because the language that they spoke there was Dutch. Why then refer to 'the dude' with a German name? Because German scholars wrote more on his work? Is that the argument? Give me a break. Apart from the fact that it's logical that there is more German literature on his work because the German language is simply far bigger, it's of course complete nonsense to take the amount of scholarly work as a criterion to refer to a person. The point is: he was born in a Dutch language area & wrote his first poems in Dutch, it's therefore ridiculous to refer to him as Heinrich von Veldeke. What a nonsense! C.Gesualdo (talk) 22:03, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Whatever your opinion is, you're going to have to find a consensus for these changes before you implement them in the article. – PeeJay 22:19, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The same goes for you. I gave you arguments & sources. The only thing you have is your big mouth. C.Gesualdo (talk) 23:52, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Until you find a consensus, the status quo should remain. If you revert again, I will report you for edit warring and disruptive editing. – PeeJay 10:10, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I had meant to get back to this discussion earlier, but got side-tracked by other matters. As has at least been admitted, one of the claimed starting points for the change is flat out wrong. It is self-evidently the case for anyone who cares to look that most scholarly wrtiting about HvV refers to him as Heinrich. There are even English-language articles in the Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik which refer to him as Heinrich - the Dutch editors of that journal clearly do not see a need to "correct" it to a Dutch form. The overwhelming majority of non-experts who consult this article will be familiar only with the German form of his name.

Regardless of where he was born, the fact is that he worked for a significant part of his life for German-speaking patrons and his major work was published under the name of Heinrich. If you notice, most writers are listed on WP under the name on their major published works, not on their birth or baptismal name. The suggestion that it is "ridiculous" for the "J.K.Rowling" article to be called that rather than "Joanne Rowling" shows how vacuous this argument is. Irish writers who published mainly in English don't get covered in WP under the Irish form of their name, hoever well attested. Whatever his parents called him, Veldeke provably worked under the name Heinrich von Veldeke, and it cannot be wrong to to refer to him as such.

There is also the fact that those who insist on a Dutch form of his name, can't seem to make up their mind on what it should be, Henryc, Henryk, Hendryk. He does not name himself in the text of Servatius, so evidence for the Dutch form of his name, as far as I can see, goes back no further than the compiler of the earliest complete Servatius manuscript in about 1470, who spells it Heynrijck - why is this not the correct form for those who insist on Dutch? The German form of his name is attested as early as the start of the 13th century (i.e. within 20 years of his death) and, more to the point, in the writings of one of his literary contemporaries, Gottfied, and in the earliest surviving MSS of his work.

I'm with PeeJay2K3 on this: any further changes not supported by concensus are to be treated as deliberate breaches of WP policy. --Pfold (talk) 10:38, 26 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry but I completely disagree with you. First of all, you're wrong when you say that 'his major work was published under the name of Heinrich.' 'Publishing' with regard to medieval literature is of course very controversial, since medieval literature is relying on manuscripts. However, most of his major works, that's to say: his poems, the life of St. Servatius and even the Eenasroman were written in a Dutch language; his native language. Secondly, you wrote: 'he worked for a significant part of his life for German-speaking patrons'. Apart from the fact that this is not very relevant if he wrote most of his works in a Dutch language, most of the people who resided at for instance the court of Kleef spoke Dutch probably better than German. But apart from that, it's also simply not true: nobody knows where Van Veldeke exactly worked. We know he wrote his early poems and the Servatius in Maastricht and we know that he eventually visited some places in Germany. But when? For how long? Nobody knows. The translations (!) of virtually all of his works in German suggest that he never really was a German, let alone a German poet in the sense that it was his first language. Finally, there was no definitive way of writing names in the middle-ages. For instance, William Langland's name is in some manuscripts written as: Willielmi de Langlond. Nevertheless everyone refers to him with the modern spelling: William Langland. Everybody today in Belgium and the Netherlands writes Hendrik van Veldeke, also in scholarly literature. The Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik is exactly what I already talked about: German scholarly work on Van Veldeke of course refer to him as Heinrich von Veldeke. But that wasn't his native name and that's not how Dutch and even English literature is referring to Van Veldeke! Also this sentence is wrong on so many levels: 'Veldeke provably worked under the name Heinrich von Veldeke, and it cannot be wrong to to refer to him as such'. The fact that you marked 'worked' already suggests that you know very well that these poets weren't 'working' under names as we know it today. You're projecting modern elements of writing on medieval literature. Van Veldeke didn't 'worked' under a specific name, so it makes no sense to change his name in his native language to a German one. C.Gesualdo (talk) 18:13, 26 July 2016 (UTC)


 * You keep repeating the same argument, and are getting nowhere. Time to move on. --Pfold (talk) 00:04, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Have you got problems reading? Or is it just too painful to admit that you're wrong? First of all, I was not repeating my arguments, I was explaining them to you. And secondly, I was predominantly correcting your erroneous and uninformed arguments. I stated for instance that:
 * 1. In contrast to what you wrote, Van Veldeke wrote his major works in a Dutch language, not a German one.
 * 2. There's absolutely no evidence that Van Veldeke 'worked' under Heinrich von Veldeke. This is something you're completely making up.
 * 3. You're projecting modern writing practices on medieval literature (your comparison with J.K. Rowling is laughable).
 * 4. It's a practice to refer to writers in their native language and there happens to be agreement over the fact that in Belgium and the Netherlands we refer to him as Hendrik van Veldeke, just as in the vast majority of English or Dutch studies on his work.
 * Give serious arguments or please shut up about it. C.Gesualdo (talk) 20:56, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * No, it's WP practice to follow the normal practice of the language of the article. The overwhelming majority of writing on Veldeke in English calls him Heinrich, a fact you seem unable to accept. Your repeated attempt to insist on a Dutch form are nothing more than breaches against WP:NPOV, some form of misguided nationalism, perhaps. You are the one who's edit warring, you are the one who should shut up - your suggested change has been repeatedly rejected by two other editors. --Pfold (talk) 21:35, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Can anyone give an example of Van Veldeke being called Heinrich in any English book apart from books about German literature or books translated from German? I suppose if they do, it will be in books about Dutch literature and/or books translated from Dutch. I wonder if anyone can find any references in English which are not either German or Dutch oriented? Put simply, it seems there is no "COMMON NAME" as per WP guidelines, because he is simply not well-known outside specialist books? (Please, if anyone can, bring evidence to the contrary.) In such a case we should use the local name. (Otherwise I fear we end up having a discussion about whether German or Dutch academic discussion takes precedence, which would be silly.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:00, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Putting details of policy aside, this case seems simpler. After spending some time on Google books I did not find any English language book calling Van Veldeke "Heinrich", but always Henric or Henrik. I looked above for anyone having given an example and I only see a reference to one book in German. So what is the WP policy case for calling him Heinrich in English? I actually don't see that such a case has been made?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:09, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Comments? C.Gesualdo Pfold Pee


 * Andrew, I taught Veldeke's poetry for 20 years (in England) - all my, admittedly Germanist, colleagues referred to him as Heinrich. Forget books - there aren't many in English - but there are plenty of articles. I'm just pasting a couple of items from Jstor:


 * The Kiss of Ascanius in Vergil's Aeneid, the Roman d'Enéas and Heinrich von Veldeke's Eneide, Rosemarie Deist, The German Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 4, From the Middle Ages to the Middle East (Autumn, 1994), pp. 463-469
 * Heinrich von Veldeke's "Minne"; Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Liebe" and "Triuwe", James F. Poag, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Oct., 1962), pp. 721-735
 * The Chronicler, the Poet and the Minstrel as Interpreters of History in Heinrich von Veldeke's "Eneide", Maria Dobozy, Mediaevistik, Vol. 2 (1989), pp. 81-96


 * Jstor has no article on with him as Henric in the title, might do in the article text I suppose. --Pfold (talk)
 * Don't overlook the heavy dose of Dutch national pride in the pro-Henric argument. There is not a single contemporary reference to him in Dutch - any Dutch form of his name is an assumption (Ok, not an unreasonable one) based on the attested name forms, until you get to the MS of the Servatius legend in the late 15th Century (250+ years after his death). And the claim that he wrote all his works in Dutch is flat out wrong. --Pfold (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2017 (UTC)


 * in the Cambridge University Library catalogue there are 4 English items:


 * Heinrich von Veldeke Eneas : a comparison with the Roman d'Eneas, and a translation into English / Rodney W. Fisher., Fisher, Rodney W., 1941-, 1992 , ,
 * Speech in the Eneide of Heinrich von Veldeke / by Jane Emberson., Emberson, Jane., 1981 , ,
 * Eneit / Heinrich von Veldeke ; translated by J.W. Thomas., Heinrich, von Veldeke, active 12th century.,  1985 , ,
 * Hendrik van Veldeke, by John R. Sinnema., Sinnema, John R., 1972
 * 3:1 for Heinrich
 * As I said above, "there are English-language articles in the Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik which refer to him as Heinrich - the Dutch editors of that journal clearly do not see a need to "correct" it to a Dutch form".
 * Finally, note that C.Gesualdo has been blocked several times for edit warring, and he is the only one here arguing for Henrik. --Pfold (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for putting those sources on record here on the talk page. (But FWIW in contrast I personally think your Dutch editors argument based on a single book with a German title is not really very convincing.) Of course neither of us have done a full survey, but this is what we have for now. As mentioned, I did find more just scanning Google Books, and all of those seemed to use non German versions, but at least your listing makes it clear that Heinrich is used often. I personally find it a bit odd to use Heinrich for a person from the County of Loon, who as you say is also the subject of nationalistic publications, statues etc (consider WP:NOTE: mention of this should eventually be included in the article) but it is hard to feel strongly about it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:38, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * But did you notice this in Google Books, Andrew? -The Life of Saint Servatius: A Dual-language Edition of the Middle Dutch Legend of Saint Servatius by Heinrich Von Veldeke and the Anonymous Upper German Life of Saint Servatius - a book in English on his one work in Dutch. My point is that Dutch scholars have no problem with "Heinrich", so why should WP? And German scholars - most of his surviving woks are in German - almost never call him anything else.
 * It's not really odd to call him Heinrich - his patrons were mostly German and he wrote for them in their language. If you like, you can just treat it as his nom de plume and most authors are listed on WP under their professional names, not their birth names --Pfold (talk) 17:45, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course in Holland and Flanders until recently his official name would be considered Henricus, which gets around all such discussions. In terms of his effect on 19th century Dutch-language/Flemish nationalism and 20th century Limburg nationalism, which is notable at least where I live, he is always called Henrik, Hendrick, etc. BTW I thought I'd seen proposals over the years that he wrote his German first in his own Limburgish? I presume this has no consensus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:27, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It used to be thought that he originally wrote Eneit in his native language - a well known edition even tried to recreate this version - but the consensus is now quite the other way. Not really surprising that he wrote in MHG, since Southern German was the prestige literary language in the 12th Century. North German poets also didn't write in their native dialect, so it's not something unique to Veldeke or Dutch - Veldeke didn't even write in the native dialect of his Thuringian patron. --Pfold (talk) 08:40, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

The name of his native language
I notice that in different parts of the article we are using different terms, without helping the readers understand that they all intend the same thing: Old Limburgs, Old Limburgish, Maaslandic, Middle Dutch. I imagine/hope that Maaslandic comes from a good source, but I also doubt that this is the most commonly used term. At least in terms of modern dialects (recent centuries, the only ones we can study) the Maasland has several dialects, not all Limburgish, but Hasselt is not in the Maaslandic area, but rather one of the most westerly forms of Limburgish. At least according to WP, Limburgish is a term that can be defined with objective terminology because of various isoglosses. I have no idea whether the original source of "Maaslandic" had a clear definition in mind? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I would support using “Limburgish” Over the other variants.—Ermenrich (talk) 11:09, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Pfold (talk) 11:47, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I guess that was also the tendency of my post, although my bigger concern is just being a bit more consistent.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:35, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Consistency is good. I think I've seen the term Maasländisch in the German scholarly literature, but Veldeke's linguistic affiliation was never a focus of mine. Limburgish seems to be the more common and general term.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:06, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The larger dialect division seems to be Meuse-Rhenish (Rhein-Maasländisch). Willemmyns's Dutch. Biography of a Language has lots of refs to Limburg in the develoment of Dutch, nothing in the index for Maas/Meuse. Google turns up quite a few uses of "maasländisch-limburgisch" with ref. to Veldeke. --Pfold (talk) 13:45, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Honestly it sounds a bit like Maasländisch is a mistake in those German sources, unless they use the term in an unexpected way. For Limburgers the Maas dialects are a real thing which people talk about, but they don't include Hasselts. Probably for a German speaker Limburgish is one small group of dialects based around the Maas. Their preferred term for the language group of Limburgish and Ripuarian also gives that impression. (In Dutch they seem to prefer calling it Limburgs-Nederrijnse.) The Maas valley was clearly a critical medieval cultural area for these dialects, but for Dutch speakers, who have an equal claim on them, the distinctions between the Maas valley and Demer are big ones, making Hasselts close in practice to standard Brabants Dutch. I am not aware of any claims that Van Veldeke spoke a dialect like Maastrichts? If anyone is interested in the isoglosses between Hasselt and the Maas see nl:Panninger zijlinie. In any case I can't think of any problem with Limburgish either from a German or Dutch perspective.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that we don't have any self-identifications of the name of the dialect(s) from this time. It's not a mistake, it includes the broad area that wrote in a more or less similar way in the High Middle Ages. The self-designation would be calling it Duutsch or something like that (attested in Veldeke's Sente Servas), but that's the self-designation of all continental West Germanic dialects at the time! Dialect distinctions and self-ascriptions change: I can still remember sitting in a class in Freiburg im Breisgau where we were discussing all the places the self-described Swabian Hartmann von Aue was from, and some students vehemently objecting that some of them weren't in the modern Schwaben.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, mistake might not be a perfect word, but it appears so far that there is a habit or tradition in modern German of sometimes using Maaslandish as a rough term to cover Limburgish more generally. So Limburgish would probably be more correct, and less ambiguous. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

the short description
I don't want to make a big thing out of a short description so I will just post a note here. I preferred the version of over the version of. Reasons: I see Low Countries as a geographical term (as used today) and not likely to be read as the name of a "state"; His native language is sometimes not seen as a form of Dutch, because Limburgish is often seen as something between Dutch and German, and close to the Rhineland dialects.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:07, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I would generally agree - I thought of "Low Countries" as a general neutral descriptor of the geographic area rather than a political term.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't feel strongly about this, but to me what's imprtant are the languages he wrote in - surely MHG needs to be mentioned. Don't share your view of "Low countries", though - for me "countries" is political and of doubtful appropriateness for this area of 12th C Europe. But if you want to change it back, I'll somehow find a way to live with it! --Pfold (talk) 11:00, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I honestly think "country" is very often geographical in every day English including the names of traditional regions?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Compare South Carolina Low Country. Or Netherland, as used in the Nibelungenlied, I suppose.—Ermenrich (talk) 13:44, 24 November 2021 (UTC)