Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. postdlf (talk) 03:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief

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List that is a duplication of source material and not of a notable topic.

Also nominating Cornwall Domesday Book tenants-in-chief for the same reason. Stifle (talk) 09:06, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm. Wikisource doesn't have this so transwiki to wikisource is the closest outcome to deletion that I'd be willing to advocate.  In the article history  recommends listifying it and I'd be interested in hearing his reasons for saying that?  I can potentially see value in a List of Domesday Book tenants-in-chief but not so sure why we'd want county-specific ones.— S Marshall  T/C 11:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The reason given for the prods was "not notable", which is nonsense. No attempt to justify that is given here. At the moment there are essentially bare linked lists, which could be listified (ie renamed), or expanded into one or more articles, or merged, as a list or article. But the material and links is worth having somewhere on WP or WS, though I think it is already a bit too "treated" for the latter. I agree I'd rather not see the whole country done with short lists in different places. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree with Johnbod.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 15:42, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Retain (article created by me). The Domesday Book tenants-in-chief were the magnates of feudal Norman England who wielded huge power. They were the billionaires of the 11th century. Each one possessed often dozens, in the case of a couple, hundreds, of manors and had no overlord but the king himself. This was the top tier of feudal society. Each one of the tenants-in-chief certainly merits his own article, although clearly in dealing with such distant history surviving biographical material is limited in the case of certain individuals, other than what lands he held, who his heirs were etc., still highly notable. This article is an important foundation article for the history of every Devon Manor, parish and village. It helps the reader to understand what a small and select group these people were and on occasion the relationships between them, at least 2 in the list were brothers and most shared a common birthplace of Normandy and had played some highly significant role (all record of which has in most cases been lost) in the Norman Conquest. There is of course further scope for development within the article. The modern history of every one of the hundreds of Devon villages begins with just one of this elite handful of 40 or so men (added to which were a handful of Normandy churches and a very few more minor tenants, e.g. a couple of dozen King's servants and thanes). I grouped them by counties because that's the way the Domesday Book was written, county by county (Devon being moreover the only English county to have its own additional version of the DB (Exon Domesday)), and because that's how English history worked for many centuries, powerful people (except the very largest magnates) were extremely parochial and tended to operate almost exclusively within one county - they concentrated their landholdings in a single county (i.e. virtually independent administrative unit) and built a power-base there by marrying into the other landowning families of that county, almost exclusively, often for several centuries. They operated local government and the magistracy of that county alone, not (generally) of any other. They virtually took it in turns to represent the various parliamentary seats within that county, and the office of Sheriff. Thus a cohesive network of  county families was created. This was especially the case in remote and isolated Cornwall, where the ruling elite (landed gentry) were almost all cousins, as Richard Carew (d.1620) intimated. Adjoining Devon was similar, being located on an isolated peninsula. Can't see why this article has been nominated for deletion?? Hopefully I've shown that this is a notable topic, but I don't understand what is meant by "duplication of source material". (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 16:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC))
 * Tentative keep. Moving it into a national list might be difficult if the intention is to create a table, because large land-holders often held land in different counties, thus making any kind of sortable table difficult to produce. There is a lot of scope for a summary of the contents and more information to be included, splitting the article into ecclesiastical and secular land-owners, for instance. Also, there is no indication as to what manors each person owned at present; including this would be useful. A lot of work needs doing, but I don't see why this article needs to be deleted. (Unsigned post by User:Noswall59)
 * Good point. I would suggest that the appropriate place for a listing of manors held is in the individual tenant-in-chief's own article. As an extreme example, Baldwin the Sheriff (number 16 on the Domesday Book list), had 176 holdings in Devon, possibly too many to list in an overview article like this one. In the case of others, so little biographical information has survived in records that there is little else to write about other than their landholdings.(Lobsterthermidor (talk) 20:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC))


 * I certainly agree that the subject's notable every county for which there is a Domesday Book entry will have coverage in, for example, the Victoria County History.  But I'm not sure it's encyclopaedic.  It duplicates the original source (in modern English) without adding anything to it.  Do the "keep" voters intend to use this content in a navigational list?— S Marshall  T/C 21:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You say "without adding anything to it", which is surely not the case? It explains among other things what the future descents of these fiefdoms were, where they descended en bloc, generally as feudal baronies, for example to the Courtenay family, Earls of Devon. It also identifies those tenants-in-chief recognised as feudal barons in Sanders' 1960 work English Baronies. More than the "original source (in modern English)". It is encyclopaedic as it deals with an important and historical class of persons, the bed-rock of modern post 1066 English history, here dealt with on a county-by-county basis for the reasons explained above. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 23:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC))


 * Robert, Count of Mortain held 248 manors in Cornwall so listing them all would be difficult as noted in the case of Baldwin the Sheriff above.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 22:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep standard navigational list. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per Lobsterthermidor. This seems to satisfy LISTN. James500 (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: As almost all of the entries on the list are blue-links, would it not be better to use a self-maintaining category? Stifle (talk) 09:22, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTDUP directs against deletion of lists for that reason. James500 (talk) 17:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep -- This is useful as a navigational aid, in the way that the list articles on individual peerages are. The alternative might be to convert it (manually) into series of categories, but some tenants in chief had land in a number of counties, so that doing so would create a lot of category-clutter.  It would be rather too like a performance by performer category, which we similarly do not allow.  We similarly do not generally allow Award winners categories, but the normal outcome there is to listify the category.  If it were not that a few major landowners had land in a dozen or more counties, I would not oppose the category solution, but there is not reason in appropriate cases not to have both a category and a list.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.