Talk:Isabella of Cyprus

Untitled
Groan. I am somewhat perturbed of how many small mistakes there were in this text. 62.78.121.58 19:32, 21 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Does being married to the Prince of Antioch not make her the Princess of Antioch? Adam Bishop 19:50, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

It is very obvious that you are only weakly familiar with medieval titles, of the genealogy of those persons, and the prioper use. You seem to want to give higher titles to all and sundry.

Her husband was NOT prince of Antioch. He was a younger son of a reigning prince of Antioch. In those times, younger children of reigning princes were not princes, there were no such courtesy titling. 62.78.104.3 15:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see. I thought she was married to Bohemund I guess. By the way: "However, the wiki naming standard should be obeyed, thus not using a married name as title of article." What standard are you referring to? Why can't we use a "married name" as a title? There are many articles like that...and I suppose you are going to tell me how much of an idiot I am for naming them like that. Adam Bishop 16:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

There is a long-time convention in English wikipedia that princely/royal persons who attained some position by marriage, are referred by their birth name, since it usually anyway was so in practical use and particularly is in history books. Anne of Austria, Henrietta of France, etc. Living persons could be an exception, such as Queen Sofia of Spain. But in accordance of the convention, recently dead have been even moved to the names conforming with the main rule, such as Elisabeth of Bavaria (an edit war even was, should it be Elisabeth in Bavaria) instead of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary. It would be nice if we follow it. Anyway, all versions of the name can (and should) be stated in the article itself. 62.78.104.3 17:45, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * But is that the case this far back in time? You yourself said courtesty titling did not yet exist, so did this sort of naming convention exist yet? Specifically, I thinking of the daughters of Baldwin II, who on Wikipedia are named Melisende of Jerusalem (as queen of Jerusalem), Alice of Antioch (as princess-consort of Antioch), Hodierna of Tripoli (as countess-consort of Tripoli), and Ioveta of Bethany (as abbess of Bethany), rather than making them all "of Jerusalem". The same idea applies to people like Isabella and Plaisance, who had been named according to where they ended up, not where they were born. Even King Fulk is "Fulk of Jerusalem", not "Fulk V of Anjou", even though he was simply a consort. Adam Bishop 18:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Further back in history, the more USUAL is the name of the land where born. I told about the changes of recent ones to highlight that the exception is basically for living people. I happen to believe that the subjects of those women knew them as "of Jerusalem" and their husbands as "of the fief in question" and that those names you mentioned, are mostly constructs of later writers. This has nothing to do with courtesy titling. And without courtesies and princess-titles, anyway, most usually daughters of medieval kings still were known as "of her father's kingdom" to contemporaries. However, the basic reason, in my understanding, is that usually no circumstance can take the birth name away, whereas married names are more easily objects of changes. And think also about that a text ridiculously says: "Margueritte of Humpedinckland was married to Everard of Humpedinckland..." (statements of marriages are apparently the most common pieces of information in articles about medieval princely women) when she became lady of Humpedinckland just because of that marriage and had nothing to do with that land before the marriage. Although I am neutral to feminist ideas, I still support this usage (which recognizes more independent identity to women, making birth more important than marriage) because of its compatibility with useful practice in consistent naming which is not likely to trigger identification problems. 62.78.125.186 07:43, 27 May 2005 (UTC)