Talk:John Kemp

John Kemp
Hi, what better than an original written document from the time of the person can there be than the inscription on its sarcophagus (in this case) or on a contemporary tomb stone? In addition anybody can check on it without going through volumes of posthumous biographies? Therefore, please do not remove my insert on the contemporaneous spelling of John Kemp as Johannes Kempe. Best wishes, Stephan Kempe — Preceding unsigned comment added by KempeIAG (talk • contribs) 19:36, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You are inserting this information into an already sourced paragraph. By inserting it, you are saying that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Kemp says the information you are inserting ... and it does NOT say that. The ODNB source (which is actually a preferred source for Wikipedia - we prefer secondary sources to primary sources - see WP:RS) does not mention the spelling of his name on his tomb. By inserting it, you are violating one of the key tenets of Wikipedia. I strongly suggest you read WP:RS before doing much more editing, as knowledge of those policies is foundational to editing on wikipedia. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:43, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi Ealdgyth, I see your point regarding the impression that the first § is sourced (Reference 1). However, I thought the brackets would be enough to show that this is an addition not related to ref. 1. Furthermore, I noticed the redundancy in the first § regarding the information that J.Kemp was the son of Thomas Kempe. Also, why is Thomas spelled Kemp as well as Kempe? Is that covered also by ref. 1? Therefore I suggest the following alteration of the first § to meet your reservation and include the information of the original spelling of John Kemp*'s name:

"Kemp was son of Thomas Kempe, a gentleman of Ollantigh, in the parish of Wye near Ashford, Kent, and of Beatrix Lewkenor, daughter of Sir Thomas Lewkenor. He was born about 1380 and educated at Merton College, Oxford.[1]. The inscription on his sarcophagus at Canterbury Cathedral records the contemporaneous spelling of his name as Johannes Kempe."

I will contact the Canterbury Historical Soc. to ask for a reference or picture. Regarding the second part of your discussion "we prefer secondary sources to primary sources" is mysterious to me. I have been in science for 50 years and in university teaching for 40 years and certainly primary sources are to be used if available instead of secondary ones. Sincerely Stephan Kempe — Preceding unsigned comment added by KempeIAG (talk • contribs) 10:59, 7 January 2019 (UTC)


 * this is not science. This is history. It does not work the same. This is actually writing a historical entry for an encyclopedia, so it’s even farther from science. I strongly suggest you read the various help pages before jumping into editing in a topic area you are not familiar with. Encyclopedias are based on secondary sources, such as recent historians. We leave the interpretation of primary sources to the historians.
 * as for your suggested edit...you are aware that the inscription is probably in Latin, right? (I actually trained in history and do historical research outside of Wikipedia, so I could interpret the primary sources if I wanted, but I don’t on wikipedia, since that isn’t what Wikipedia is..) This comes back to the use of secondary sources...they interpret the primary sources to tell us what they mean. Historians are trained to interpret and weigh primary sources just as a scientist is trained to interpret experiment results. Wikipedia doesn’t use the primary sources in science either...editors don’t directly use the experiments to write up Wikipedia entries, so neither do we do so with historical entries.
 * as for the brackets you used making it clear, no, it would not. That isn’t how thing work on Wikipedia nor how we indicate information. Before suggesting changes to sourced information, you need to actually check the source given. As for the differences in spelling...this is simply due to the fact that surnames were not standardized in this period - for that matter they didn’t standardize for hundreds of years after this time period. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:51, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay, here are the facts on the inscription on Kempe's coffin (courtesy of David Lewis of the Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society, who kindly provided references and photos) and a secondary reference:

According to Joseph Meadows Cowper's Memorial Inscriptions of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, (1897) (p. 135) the inscription on Kempe’s coffin is:

N-Side: + hic jacet Reverendissimus in xpo (Christo) Pater et dns (Dominus) dns (Dominus) Johes (Johannes) Kempe tituli Sce (Sancte) Rufine sacrosancte Romane Ecclesie

W-Side: Episcopus Cardinalis Archiepus (Archiepiscopus) Cantuariensis Qui

S-Side: obiit vicesimo scdo (secondo) die Mensis Maieij Anno dominie Millimo (Millesimo) cccc liii Cuius animi propicietur deus AMEN

Translated: 'Here lies in Christo the most highly venerated Pater and Lord, Dominus Johannes Kempe, by the title of Santa Rufina of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal-Bishop and Archbishop of Canterbury, who died on the 22nd day of the month of May, in the year of the Lord one thousand 453, on whose soul God may have mercy, AMEN'

Please, also note that there is an ambiguity in reading the date of Kempe's death. It is either March (Martij) or May (Maieij) and that the year is listed as 1453. The name of Kempe is not latinised.

Best wishes, Stephan Kempe — Preceding unsigned comment added by KempeIAG (talk • contribs) 16:19, 1 February 2019 (UTC)