Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Royal Maundy/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain 04:43, 13 January 2011.

Royal Maundy

 * Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 13:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because... I believe it meets the criteria. Royal Maundy is one of those quirky British ceremonies which fascinate everyone else. I believe it has survived as is because of the enthusiasm of the Queen, and something would be lost if her successors do not keep it up. In my opinion, this may well be the best resource on the ceremony out there, as the two books I'm aware of on the ceremony are a bit dated. Thanks to Malleus for looking over, and to Fasach Nua for giving a preliminary check on the images. Enjoy it. I think it is one of my more fun ones.Wehwalt (talk) 13:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: The images look sound, and it looks like the coin designs are public domain, but could notes be made on the templates on the image pages just to clarify that? J Milburn (talk) 22:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply: I use templates by rote; I do not pretend to understand them.  Each of the three coin images bears on the description page a full explanation of why the coins are in the public domain, sourced to a reliable source.  Is that not sufficient?--Wehwalt (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: There is a mixture of UK and U.S. spelling in this excellent article. Happy to give it the orthographical once-over if Wehwalt confirms if it's to be UK or U.S. Tim riley (talk) 13:26, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * UK, of course. Please feel free to.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC) (...done. Tim riley (talk) 14:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC))


 * Support: A most pleasing article, fully compliant with all FAC criteria, in my opinion (with my usual caveat that I am no expert on images and leave it to the specialists to pronounce on them). I cannot think of any other encyclopaedia that could boast such a good piece on this eccentric but picturesque facet of English life. Well shaped, immaculately referenced and a delightful read. Warm congratulations. I look forward to seeing it on the front page. Tim riley (talk) 14:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support, if it passes I am thinking about Maundy Thursday, April 21.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

 Leaning to support Support: The article is predictably well made. It was whipped away from PR in front of my very eyes, so these are my first comments on it. I will deal with sources issues separately.
 * Can you clarify how recipients have been selected, particularly in ancient times? Para 3 of the "Royal Maundy today" section gives some information, but it is still vague about how, or by whom, the selections were/are made. I also believe that this information should be given early in the article, to avoid questions arising in readers' minds.
 * To say the information on this is scanty is not an overstatement. I've now put in what I have, but will keep looking through the PD sources.  I've also added a sentence to the lede.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the WP directive about writing out low numbers applies to ordinals as well as cardinals, therefore "fourth or fifth century"
 * Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I imagine Oswald died of some natural cause, not from some particularly lethal form of footwashing, so to say the process "claimed a casualty" is a little far-fetched.
 * According to Wright, he "passed to the Lord", which Wright renders as a quote. Autopsy is not available, I'm afraid.  The death of Oswald remains a mystery (hmmmm) but I've toned down the text.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Values such as "35 shillings" and "45 shillings" etc can (just about) be figured out by ancient Brits such as Tim Riley or me, but others may need some help here.
 * Do you have a suggestion as to how to render it?--Wehwalt (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Put in brackets the equivalents in today's monetary units. Thus 35 shillings (£1.75), 45 shillings (£2.25) etc. Brianboulton (talk) 12:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "Until 1890 the service was held in most years at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, but after its closure the service moved to Westminster Abbey." I think this information also needs to be given much earlier in the article, as I have been wondering about that since starting reading.
 * Done, in the post-restoration section.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Over here, Handel is never referred to as "Georg Handel". It's usually just "Handel", occasionally "George Frederick Handel" but never "Georg", though this was indeed his baptismal name. I recommend you make it "Handel"
 * Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "In 1822 an amended reverse was introduced, and has been struck every year since then..." Could we be told the basic form of this design? This information was provided in respect of the 1689 design, the crowned numeral.
 * That's done. --Wehwalt (talk) 20:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * What is the purpose of striking 2,000+ sets of Maundy coins when the distribution is to only a small fraction of this number?
 * Personal view: £100 per set seems to me to be disappointingly small – I envisaged hundreds – and not really worth the "as much as".
 * That's true, but the demand is not high. Yes, the Maundy money has gone from being the smallest part of the monetary gifts to by far the greatest in real value, thanks to inflation.  And the silver content for a set is maybe a tenth of an ounce. so a pound.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

All of these I imagine can be easily fixed, and I look forward to supporting Brianboulton (talk) 19:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think so, where the information is available. Please remember that today, every Maundy recipient gets eight sets of Maundy money, and some oddments.  So that's 170 recipients times eight, we're already talking 1300 plus setsIf you add in the officiants, probably the clergy at the cathedral, the Lord High Almoner, the Maundy children, and people who prepare for the service, well, that gets you up there.  And I said 1600 to 1900, the 2K plus was in 1909.  There is demand for Maundy money by collectors, but it is not huge.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I am generally happy with the changes per above. It may be better to say "various Christian denominations" than "various Christian faiths", since it can be argued that the basic Christian "faith", in the divinity of Christ, is common to all branches of Christianity. One further change I'd like to see is the insertion of the word "symbolic" before "alms" in the lead phrase "as alms to elderly recipients". Otherwise readers (especially non-Brit) might think that this is an actual charitable distribution rather than the maintenance of a tradition. Brianboulton (talk) 12:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made all those changes you recommended.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Happy to support now

Sources comment: No sources issues that I can see. Sample verification checks OK. Brianboulton (talk) 19:35, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Dab/EL check - no dabs or dead external links. -- Pres N  05:50, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Support – Though I did make one minor fix before coming here, the writing and other things seem up to par.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 03:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the support and for the fix. Well, three supports, no opposes, the usual checks have been done.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Gnashing my teeth slightly, I ordered a magazine with an article about Royal Maundy and it turns out to be completely useless. Anyway, happy to answer any further concerns.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * "At the service, the British Monarch or her representative ceremoniously distributes..." if it is impersonal, should be "their representative", no?
 * OK
 * Not by several parasangs. This article is in English, and a singular verb requires a singular subject. Tim riley (talk) 00:32, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The default picture size has been 220px for some time. There should be a good reason to fix pix smaller than this but several her are fixed at 200px for no evident reason. Personally I'd fix at 250-270 or leave unfixed. I've changed a couple; the lead pic is still too small to read on my screen at the 250 I've set it to - 300 would be better.
 * OK; I've set the lead pic top 300, where one can just about see what's going on. Johnbod (talk) 23:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "According to the British Monarchy's web page concerning the Maundy service, ..." not an authoritative enough source to quote in text, in fact ideally a better one, like the OED, should be used (it covers it fully). Which Gospels? bibleverse template/links should be used for direct biblical quotes, not refs to some book on coins, though these can supplement it. If we are going into mandatum, that is of course from the Latin Vulgate, which should be explained & linked if only in the ref (Biblegateway has the text).
 * OK
 * "The ceremony, known as the pedilavium, was performed daily in some monasteries; " referenced I know, but there is nothing about this in Cole (below), who only goes as far as weekly, or other sources. Mostly it is tied to particular occasions, whether Maundy Thursday or something else.
 * I don't know what to do about it. It is sourced.  I imagine different monasteries differed in their level of observance.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This article by Virginia Cole has stuff that should probably be added. I think this early section is somewhat over-reliant on Robinson, who one suspects is not a medievalist. Cole righly relates the practice to "Touching for The King's Evil" which had its own exonumia of Touch pieces. These need to be linked & briefly worked in. Some expansion on the intellectual context Cole outlines is needed. At the moment the article is too much of a plodding rehearsal of the facts, like so much British monarchical literature. This has stuff on the French ancien regime versions of both ceremonies. A bit of context & comparison with other European courts is needed I think. According to Foot washing the Kings of Spain & Austrian Emperors were still getting their hands wet into the 20th century.
 * Better, but the political purposes set out on pp 222, 233-234, 243 & elsewhere need mention. In modern times the ceremony is essentially a curiosity (such as we love at FAC) but in the middle ages it probably had more pointed messages, which need to be given at least equal weight to the modern curiosity and coins, since the article covers the whole subject. Personally I find the former much more interesting than the latter, but the article still rather reflects a bias in the opposite direction; a more equal weighting is still needed. On reflection, "Early history" might not be the best section header. Johnbod (talk) 00:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It should also be added that the washing ritual continues to be performed by senior clergy today - I think both the Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury regularly do it on Maundy Thursday, and rather oddly several very un-ritual-minded Protestant groups have practiced it. I see there is a bit later on, but this would be better up here with the rest of the "clergy" stuff. We have a big article on Foot washing, which should be linked (in both directions) & I don't think yet is.
 * Better, but "Church of England bishops still sometimes perform the pedilavium .." is a tad misleading, as it is much more widespread than that, and has I think become increasingly fashionable in various denominations in recent decades. Johnbod (talk) 00:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "As at that time, a Maundy recipient continued in that status for life, the surplus recipients were placed on waiting lists" - meaning it was the same people every year? That information should be made more prominent, and given earlier, I think, and if the period when that was the case is in the sources it should be added. Ok I see 1951 comes later. Maybe this should be slipped into the lead - it comes as rather a surprise as it is.
 * OK
 * "At that time [before 1731?], coins used for the Maundy money distribution were indistinguishable from those struck for circulation. It was not until 1752 that coins not struck for circulation were used for the Maundy distribution." is quickly followed by by: "In 1689, the Royal Mint began using a design for the reverse of the small silver pieces depicting a crowned numeral" - isn't there a contradiction here?
 * OK, I understand from below, but the article still seems a bit unclear. I think it's "the small silver pieces". "Coins" would be better, for a start. Johnbod (talk) 23:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * What about now?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that does it. Johnbod (talk) 13:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "The design of the circulation threepence remained the same as that of the Maundy threepence until 1928, when a new design was introduced" - to the circulation ones, is that?
 * OK


 * Johnbod (talk) 16:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the thoughtful review.   I will do what I can today, and a few quick answers.  Robinson does discuss the touching for scrofula (the King's Evil) as well as other forms of royal charity, he devotes a chapter to this.  Perhaps a quick sentence is in order, discussing other ancient royal charities.  Please remember that this is not a general Maundy Thursday article but about the Royal Maundy service and its roots and artifacts and while there is room for expansion, I'd like to keep to that topic as much as possible.  On your other questions:  Yes, it was the same people every year, keeping in mind that you had to be pretty old to be getting Royal Maundy, and so mortality and the aging of the monarch caused some new recipients each year.  They must have been scrambling in 1838, it was the first time there had been a big decrease since 1760, although there would have been some in 1820 and slightly in 1830 (probably normal mortality would have covered the decrease then).   Regarding the coins:  The sentences are not contradictory.  One sentence deals with the design of all small silver coins (1,2,3,4 pence).  It changed in 1689 from a design with hooked Cs in the number of pence the coin was to the crowned numeral.  But these still weren't "Maundy pieces" in the usual sense, they were just circulation coins.  A few of them were used for the Maundy service, and probably they made sure they were nice shiny ones.  In 1752, the Mint stopped striking these designs except for use as Maundy pieces, because silver coin was being hoarded or exported.  So Maundy pieces became different by default, as it were (the copper penny so familiar to us all was not struck until 1797).  Does that make it clearer?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I've got everything. I did not see that Cole says anything more about the King's Touch than that than it was roughly contemporaneous with the development of the Maundy by the English court. Within a century or so, anyway. I am reluctant to put much about foreign maundy services (such as the French king) because I really feel it's too far afield. I did everything else, I think.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:35, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well at the moment you have nothing at all about foreign royal maundies, so giving the misleading impression by omission that such ceremonies are uniquely English, rather than, as Cole says, a feature of all major European royal houses in the middle ages. Cole does not say much about the King's Evil because, unlike the Maundy, that has been intensively covered by very heavyweight historians like Marc Bloch, Frank Barlow and Jacques Le Goff, as she mentions. That ceremony is more intensively political as it implies that the monarch's touch has a special magical/divine power, which the Maundy does not. But I certainly think the similarities between the two makes some mention, and links to the two articles necessary. Cole also mentions a number of other studies of the Maundy (notes on p. 224 and elsewhere). Would it be possible to access some of these on JSTOR? Johnbod (talk) 00:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is straying rather far off topic. I can rustle up any Jstor articles if needed (let me know), but I don't think they are. Tim riley (talk) 00:42, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Why "far off topic"? Several of the articles cited are bang on topic from their titles, and as the nom says, the two main sources on the whole history are "a bit dated", and probably by non-specialists in medieval history (Cole does not seem to find it necessary to mention either that I could see). Johnbod (talk) 01:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They are dated in the sense that I had to scramble a bit for a few recent details on the Maundy, not in their coverage of the origins and history of the Maundy. Yes, there was an article on the details of Maundy under King John.  We mention King John's Maundy (possibly Maundies), we do not have time for the details.  This article has to cover 2,000 years of history, with attention to the details people will want, that is, all about it today and the uniqueness of the coins.  I do not wish to lose the reader in the 13th century.  I've got a couple more things to add, but I think we are approaching the limits of what can be done within the article as it stands without giving overemphasis to a period in history somewhat distant from now.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This seems to me to be the crux of the matter. The article could ramify enjoyably in such directions as adumbrated above, but for its declared topic it seems to me, as now drawn, wholly and admirably to the point. Tim riley (talk) 01:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I did look into the matter of the King's Touch. While they seem contemporary in origin with the Maundy, give or take a couple of centuries (Robinson mentions King Edward the Confessor as an eleventh century example, but that seemed to be Edward as holy man, rather than as king that people wanted his touch), there seems no real connection between the two. Yes, they both involved the distribution of money and there is a numismatic legacy (though centuries apart, as the article discusses, Maundy pieces did not come into their own until 1752, and Anne was the last monarch to touch for scrofula), but there were other examples of charity with a political purpose. Largesse would be the best example in my view, and both William I and Mary I, who were both unpopular, did very large largesse to try to build their popularity. Accordingly, I've put touchpiece as a see also in this article, but don't see any reason to mention the touching in this article.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: This is a well-written, well-structured, well-referenced article. I believe that it complies with the FA criteria, and I support its promotion.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: The images are fine; article meets the criteria. One minor point: the subtitle "Royal Maundy today" might be better as "Reign of Elizabeth II" or such like, to avoid "today" and repeating the title of the article. DrKiernan (talk) 12:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the supports. Yes, I know, the section title is a MOS violation, but as I have not come up with something that better expresses the purpose of the section, I'm content to IAR it unless something better comes along.  The idea is, that is the section the public should go to if seeking info on the current Royal Maundy service, and I haven't been able to come up with a better one.  Yours would make it seem too historical.  Open to ideas though.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.