User:Smtayl5/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Here is my ranking for these choices:


 * 1) Medieval European Magic (I can narrow it down to a specific region if this is considered too large)
 * 2) Sir Gowther
 * 3) Spanish Chivalry
 * 4) Medieval Female Sexuality
 * 5) Schwabenspiegel

Option 1

 * Medieval Female Sexuality
 * Article Evaluation
 * This is a pretty good article. There are plenty of sources used and they seem relevant to the topics under Medieval Female Sexuality that the author chose to explore. The language for the most part seems unbiased. This articles seems like it might fall under the controversial subject matter that wikipedia mentioned in the exercise, since there is mention of rape and gender inequality. I can see how this author used one example of a rape trial being in favor of the accused rapist during the medieval era as being the standard. It also  seemed odd to single this one recorded case of acquittal out, it was like the author was stating they knew for sure he actually did it, but we can't really prove that. There are a couple topics I think that fall under Medieval Female Sexuality that should be included, such as the relationships of knights and ladies, the depictions of relationships between monsters/demons and women, and the perception of women's sexuality in literature to name a few.
 * Sources
 * Florschuetz, Angela. Marking Maternity in Middle English Romance : Mothers, Identity, and Contamination. First edition., Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
 * Karras, Ruth Mazo. Common Women : Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England. Oxford University Press, 1996.
 * Campbell, Emma, and Robert Mills. Troubled Vision : Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in Medieval Text and Image. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
 * DeVun, Leah. Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 22, no. 3, University of Texas Press, 2013, pp. 542–44,
 * Campbell, Emma, and Robert Mills. Troubled Vision : Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in Medieval Text and Image. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
 * DeVun, Leah. Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 22, no. 3, University of Texas Press, 2013, pp. 542–44,

Option 2

 * Schwabenspiegel
 * Article Evaluation
 * This article is incredibly short. Wikipedia considers this article to be a "stub" piece, meaning it does not have enough information to be considered legitimate coverage of the topic. There is one source that is marked as needing a hyperlink. There are references to what influenced the creation of the Schwabenspiegel, but it doesn't explain what the law code took from the other sources. There is also no information on what is in the law code. I found this topic in the Medieval Female Sexuality page and it did a better job explaining at least a section of the code than its own page did.
 * This article is incredibly short. Wikipedia considers this article to be a "stub" piece, meaning it does not have enough information to be considered legitimate coverage of the topic. There is one source that is marked as needing a hyperlink. There are references to what influenced the creation of the Schwabenspiegel, but it doesn't explain what the law code took from the other sources. There is also no information on what is in the law code. I found this topic in the Medieval Female Sexuality page and it did a better job explaining at least a section of the code than its own page did.


 * Sources
 * Wilson, Katharina M., and Nadia Margolis. Women in the Middle Ages : an Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press, 2004.
 * Slayton, William John. "Schwabenspiegel: Lehenrechtbuch; an English translation." (1967) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/89908.

Wüsthof, Lucas. Schwabenspiegel und Augsburger Stadtrecht. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017. (would need interlibrary loan for the whole text)

Bennett, Judith M. Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

(Just a question for class, if there are a lot of sources but they happen to be in another language, is it okay to use them if the sources have an option to which it to English? I cannot read German.)

Option 3

 * Medieval European magic
 * Article Evaluation
 * The first thing that caught my eye on the article is that the title has a typing error, as magic should be capitalized. Throughout the page there are some odd grammatical choices, like using commas when there should be a period or a semi-colon. There was also an issue with the flow to the writing and overlapping information in different areas. Multiple sections depicted the persecution of magic/witchcraft by the church, and so it became a little repetitive. The information about the magic itself seemed pretty accurate from what I already know, but the article is littered with "citation needed" and "original research" so it can't really be trusted. What was there was also so overwhelmed by all of the information about the persecution of magic that there wasn't much to say about who used/sought out magic and why, and where. Were there differences in magic in different areas? Did some countries not have magic at all?
 * Sources
 * Rampling, Jennifer M. The Experimental Fire : Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700. The University of Chicago Press, 2020.
 * Kivelson, Valerie A., and Christine D. Worobec. Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000-1900 : a Sourcebook. Northern Illinois University Press an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2020.
 * Montesano, Marina. Folklore, Magic, and Witchcraft : Cultural Exchanges from the Twelfth to Eighteenth Century. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.
 * Gosden, Chris. Magic : a History : from Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present. First American edition., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
 * Collins, David J., et al. The Sacred and the Sinister : Studies in Medieval Religion and Magic. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019.
 * Gosden, Chris. Magic : a History : from Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present. First American edition., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
 * Collins, David J., et al. The Sacred and the Sinister : Studies in Medieval Religion and Magic. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019.

Option 4

 * Sir Gowther
 * Article Evaluation
 * I used this article for my first big evaluation last week so everything I said there still stands. If I had realized I would want to do it I would have saved it just for this.
 * I used this article for my first big evaluation last week so everything I said there still stands. If I had realized I would want to do it I would have saved it just for this.


 * Sources
 * McDonald, Nicola. Pulp Fictions of Medieval England : Essays in Popular Romance. Manchester University Press, 2004.
 * Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome., and Bonnie Wheeler. Becoming Male in the Middle Ages. 1st pbk. ed., Garland Pub., 2000.
 * Hostetter, Aaron Kenneth. Political Appetites : Food in Medieval English Romance. The Ohio State University Press, 2017.
 * (This one might have mention of Sir Gowther, but I need to get it from an inter loan. It was a search result that matched so I think it must have Sir Gowther in it (maybe it mentions him eating from the dogs mouths?))
 * Florschuetz, Angela. Marking Maternity in Middle English Romance : Mothers, Identity, and Contamination. First edition., Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Option 5

 * Spanish chivalry
 * Article Evaluation
 * This article had an alert at the top that the summarization may be off, it is difficult to understand for those who are not already knowledgable about the subject, and it may contain original research. After reading the article myself, I agree with Wikipedia's assessment. The summary only mentions the topic in the last sentence, instead contextualizing chivalry across the era in other areas. There isn't a very clear timeline set for the development of chivalry in Spanish court, so I understand how this would be confusing for someone new to the subject. There are also issues with when topics need to be defined. In one paragraph the author mentioned the Reconquista without saying what it was, and then in the next section mentions it with explanation. It would have made the first section make sense if they had defined it. Additionally, there is a section on knightly orders but there isn't an explanation of what that is or what they each did.
 * This article had an alert at the top that the summarization may be off, it is difficult to understand for those who are not already knowledgable about the subject, and it may contain original research. After reading the article myself, I agree with Wikipedia's assessment. The summary only mentions the topic in the last sentence, instead contextualizing chivalry across the era in other areas. There isn't a very clear timeline set for the development of chivalry in Spanish court, so I understand how this would be confusing for someone new to the subject. There are also issues with when topics need to be defined. In one paragraph the author mentioned the Reconquista without saying what it was, and then in the next section mentions it with explanation. It would have made the first section make sense if they had defined it. Additionally, there is a section on knightly orders but there isn't an explanation of what that is or what they each did.


 * Sources
 * Thomas, Henry. Spanish and Portuguese Romances of Chivalry. Kegan Paul, 2003.
 * Velázquez de Castillo, Gabriel., and Gunnar Jay Anderson. Clarián de Landanis : an Early Spanish Book of Chivalry. Juan de la Cuesta, 1995.
 * Russell, P. E. Portugal, Spain, and the African Atlantic, 1343-1490 : Chivalry and Crusade from John of Gaunt to Henry the Navigator. Variorum, 1995.
 * Claussen, Samuel A. Chivalry and Violence in Late Medieval Castile. The Boydell Press, 2020.
 * Frieder, Braden K. Chivalry & the Perfect Prince : Tournaments, Art, and Armor at the Spanish Habsburg Court. Truman State University Press, 2008.