User:Dr Benway

Dr. Benway came into existence in February 1976. He was posterirorly pronounced a gentleman by Act of Congress. His areas of interest are history, literature and law.

He currently holds a BA in law, a masters in Public International Law, and is currently working towards a BA in History.

He was awarded a honorary Doctorate by the Eclectic University of Interzone in Intuitive and Spontaneous Surgery.

Wikipedia and I
I stumbled upon the English Wikipedia on a random google search and since then have become, quite simply, in love with it both as a resource for primary research and as a concept. As a resource, because it combines a high level of information with neutrality and lack of bias. As a concept, because as an effort driven by a community it's evolved into something staggering, offering knowledge to anyone who cares to want to know.

My main interest in Wikipedia is history, especially ancient and medieval. As an editor, my questionable and humble contributions are aimed at maintaining neutrality in historical issues, and waging war upon the splattering of modern politics or bias into historical articles.

Edit History
A brief, overviewed diary of my contributions to Wikipedia. Nothing fancy, but it helps to keep my brain organised.

Victorinus

My first edit :) It all happened because I was studying the Gallic Empire period and came accross a reference in one of my textbooks that the separation of Hispania under Victorinus from the provinces under his command was not all that clear. Mainstream historians take it as a given, but there's a reference in Scriptores Historiae Augustae mentioning a letter from Claudius to the senate that talks of Hispania as part of Tetricus' domains has raised a small spark of doubt. Given that Tetricus was Victorinus' successor, I thought perhaps it would be a good idea, for the sake of completion, to include a reference to this somewhat questionable and elusive, yet historical source.

Hispania and Spain

One of my pet peeves is the adscription of modern state names to historical places. Despite the fact that it's often easier in terms of searching, it so often generates confusion with readers that I generally tend to rename these references to their real names, unless this renaming catapults the place into obscurity. And so it was that I very discreetly changed "Spain" to the Roman "Hispania" in the articles on Victorinus and Postumus. I haven't put the reference in yet, and I'm waiting for some editors to comment on how we maybe could/should go about it, if it's worth the trouble.

Honorius

One of the most tragic episodes of history, the slow agony and collapse of the Western Roman Empire has always been one of my favourite periods. As I was taking a look at good old Honorius, I saw an unreferenced mention of a story I had heard before but never actually double-checked. And so I embarked on my first piece of Wikipedia research ;) Anyway, a couple of Google hits later I discovered it came from Procopius, and went on to find it in the text and reference it in the article. Not a big deal, but hey... :P And also took a peek at Procopius and did a minor edit on the name of one of his books (History of the Wars)which I was finding a tad confusing.

Pope Sylvester II

Pope Sylvester is one of the most curious of papal figures in history, and some time after his death wild rumours of him being a sorcerer began to crop up. This was probably due to the fact that he studied in Seville and Córdoba, back then in the lands of the Caliphate of Córdoba. Me being my usual self, I dropped a note nagging about the fact that the author had stated that the future Pope studied in "Spain" rather than in the Caliphate. Spain as a state did not exist back then, and the fact that someone who would be Pope studied in Arab places of learning... well, it's simply too good to pass! ;)

Tartessos

The most well-known Iron Age culture of the Iberian Peninsula, the culture of Tartessos has been subject to constant debate for decades in the context of Spanish historiography. In any case, made a small comment on the fact that there was no specific city named Tartessos... or at least, that's what I think. I'll be able to document it soon, whenever I find the time and the energy. ;)

Wilfred the Hairy, the Marcha Hispanica and the Catalan counties

This funnily-named gentleman was the founder of the House of Barcelona, a Marcher count of the Franks who managed to slink away from Carolingian control and gain autonomy for his counties. The edit suggestions are once again result of my pet peeve: referring to historical places with modern names, and thereby trying to justify a connection between them. Wilfred was not Catalan, simply because Catalonia did not exist in any way back in Wilfred's time. The amount of confusion and misinformation that this kind of terminology produces is staggering, as well as annoying.

This of course leads to the Hispanic Marches, the buffer counties that the descendants of Charlemagne had handed over to various vassals in order to create a stopper zone for Muslim invasions from Al-Andalus. As the power of the Carolingian monarchs began to decline, many of these counties effectively extricated themselves from Frankish rule. Once again, claims of these counties being anything other than what they were (i.e., independent domains) are, in my opinion, misleading in a very manipulative manner. Not to mention the posterior branching-off of the topic to Catalan counties, which I suggested be merged with the Hispanic Marches.