Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 May 16

= May 16 =

Shares of stock
When Emperor Norton died, his apartment was searched, and among the findings (to quote our article) were "his letters to Queen Victoria and 98 shares of stock in a defunct gold mine". The source is a print book (online, see page 231); it says 98,200, but that's beside the point. How can one "find" shares of stock in an apartment, since they're bookkeeping entries representing ownership of a portion of a corporation? Could this merely mean that the searchers found a stock certificate for the shares? Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * That was not necessarily as true in the past as it is today. To buy stock, you took ownership of actual stock certificates.  -- Jayron 32 00:38, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "In the past" is not all that long ago, either. I received paper share certificates for stock I bought in about 1982 (in Canada). --69.159.60.83 (talk) 05:47, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Some shares of stock are not registered: Bearer bond. At least, the owner is not registered in an accounting book. If you lay your hands on them, they are yours. It is as if it were cash. --Llaanngg (talk) 01:32, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Except a Bond (finance) is not a Share (finance). While both bearer bonds and stock certificates represent unregistered securities, they are distinctly different.  A bond is an instrument of debt and a share is an instrument of ownership.  When you buy a bond, you become a creditor of the company in question.  When you buy stock, you become an owner of the company in question.  Those are two very different roles.  -- Jayron 32 02:08, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Bearer instrument is of interest. In the 19th century, these were fairly common financial instruments. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  06:10, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm curious about them finding his letters to (not "from") Queen Victoria. It implies one of the following:
 * 1) that he was careful to keep copies of his letters, but not the replies he received
 * 2) that he was careful to keep copies of his letters, but that the palace didn't reply to him
 * 3) that he never sent the letters

Interesting. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:50, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that he was insane in a charming and consistent sort of way, and was pretender to a non-existent throne, I think that #2 is by far the most likely option, . Cullen328  Let's discuss it  05:47, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I take your point! --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Currency basket
The bond links in the above section led me to National debt of the United States, which mentions how the Kuwaiti dinar is pegged to a basket of currencies. "Basket of currencies": how do you peg your currency to multiple others? Is this like pegging the value of something else to the value of a mutual fund, so the average (whether mean, median, or some other measure, I don't care) value of the fund's stocks is what your "something else" is actually pegged to? Neither Currency basket nor Basket (finance) explains this very well, although the former article seems to support my guess. Nyttend (talk) 02:23, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Your guess is correct. So e.g. if your basket has 2/3 weight on the US dollar and 1/3 weight on the euro, then if the dollar goes up 6% relative to other currencies and the euro goes up 3% relative to other currencies then you would have your currency go up by (2/3)×6% + (1/3)×3% = 5%. Loraof (talk) 04:07, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * That is true, with a note that the weights of the currencies will fluctuate (i.e., in the example above, dollar will have a higher weight after the rate changes), since the amounts of currency in the basket are fixed (although they may be re-fixed), whereas the weights change.
 * To put that in simple terms, when you (if you happen to be a central bank) have a simple dollar peg you are saying "one unit of my currency is worth 1 dollar (as an example) and I promise to give 1 dollar to anyone who brings me one unit of my currency". When you have a basket, that would be "one unit of my currency is worth 1 dollars, 1 euro and 50 yen (again, as an example) and I promise to give all that currency to anyone who brings me one unit of my currency". See how the SDR, a widely used currency basket, is made. No longer a penguin (talk) 08:24, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Perceptions of "the beginning of history" in England vs. the rest of Britain and Ireland
The earlier question about English king lists reminded me of something I've been wondering for a while. (I'm not sure if its answerable here - it's possibly too much about opinions - but I'll give it ago). While my school history lessons weren't quite as bad as 1066 and All That, I did somewhat come away with the impression that nothing important happened in England before the Romans came, and the real history of England didn't begin until the Norman Conquest. This makes me wonder two things: (I suppose by "real history begins" I mean a point that (it is perceived) marks the boundary between a time where everything is too poorly documented, too remote, or too different to be meaningful or significant to later ages, and a time where events become more understandable and relevant. Or something like that). Iapetus (talk) 09:44, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) How widespread is/was this impression of English history?  (The previous question and answers suggest it wasn't unique to me).
 * 2) When is "real" history generally thought to begin in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where the Roman and Norman invasions came later or not at all?  Is such a question even meaningful in those countries?


 * Before the Romans arrived, there was no written history in the British Isles because the inhabitants didn't write. The Romans did indeed find inhabitants here when they got here in 55BC with Julius Caesar's famous invasion, and you can piece together various things from authors such as Tacitus, but really this is where history becomes archaeology. Then we had the "Dark Ages" when the Romans left. Now things have moved on since this era was glossed over with "Dark Ages - nobody knows", but it still gets basically ignored in schools. TV programmes such as Time Team have helped enormously with the public perception of this period of time, but even then we are still reliant on archaeology rather than written stories which are contemporaneous. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:03, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The division between history and prehistory may now be rather old fashioned, as archaeology has taught us a great deal about what happened before there were written records. However, the big difference that remains is between history with names (of people and places) and the effectively anonymous history which preceded the written record. The Romans did not just conquer England - they also controlled Wales and, for a while, the southern part of Scotland. There are some mentions in Roman records which predate the actual invasions, and there are some references to Ireland - which the Romans never invaded, but did know about and trade with. Written history within Ireland starts in the early 5th century, when the country was first converted to Christianity: the church was always a great keeper of records. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 11:05, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Iapetus, regarding I did somewhat come away with the impression that nothing important happened in England before the Romans came:
 * I think you may have fallen prey to the perception that a lack of written records about Period X = nothing important happened during Period X. By definition, we don't know what happened during Period X, but the answer is almost certainly NOT "nothing important".   It's very hard to have a course on something of which we have no knowledge, so it's not at all surprising that no time is spent on teaching it, and that all history-teaching resources are focussed on those parts of the past of which we do actually have knowledge.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the OP's focus is on common perception, rather than the "reality" of academic historiography. I can't answer the OP's question about Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but certainly going to school in Australia in the 90s the high school history curriculum conveyed the impression that Act I was the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and then Act II started with 1066 and the death of Edward the Confessor. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:31, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * England as a concept didn't exist until there were a group of people called the English to inhabit said land. According to most accepted histories, those people didn't arrive until the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and the subsequent drift in culture and language from their Germanic forbearers; that didn't really happen until probably the 7th century.  Speaking of England prior to that doesn't make sense because the English as a people didn't exist.  There was Celtic Britain and Roman Britain, but "English Britain" can't be spoken about before it existed!  -- Jayron 32 12:18, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You forgot Sub-Roman Britain between the departure of the Romans and the take-over by those rude Germanic chaps. It used to be called the Dark Ages when I was at school. However, I don't think that using England as a geographical concept is any more invalid than using Italy, Germany or even France as geographical concepts in a historical context. Those studying the early history of Wales or Scotland don't seem to have the same reticence. Alansplodge (talk) 12:03, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, yes and no. We can say "England" to mean "The plot of land that we know know as England", so I get your point there.  But the OPs question was asking about the beginning of English history.  There are numerous historiographical reasons why we "start" the history of England/history of the English people at a particular date or era, but regardless of whether 1066 is as important as you think it should be, we can definitively say that there was a time before when there were no English people.  And there absolutely were no English people before the Romans came.  The English didn't show up until after the Romans bugged out. -- Jayron 32 18:49, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

A few clarifications: 1) I'm aware that (for certain definitions of "history"), history in Britain literally did begin with the Roman conquest. 2) I'm also aware that the Anglo-Saxons didn't arrive until some time after the Romans left, and that the concept of "Englishness" didn't really crystalize until later still. 3) However, the English do have a tendency to conflate England with Britain, and the Roman period is generally seen as an important part of the history of what became England. (E.g. ''1066 and All That's THE first date in English History is 55 B.C., in which year Julius Caesar (the memorable Roman Emperor) landed... The Roman Conquest was, however, a Good Thing, since the Britons were only natives at that time.  Or more recently and non-satirically, when I was at school in England we did far more about both the Romans (and the Normans & later) than we did about the Saxons).  4) And yes, as PalaceGuard008 said, I'm mainly asking about popular perceptions'' of history, rather than the most up-to-date academic consensus. So to refine my original questions:
 * 1) In (what was to become) England and Wales, literacy (and hence history in the strict sense) began with the Roman conquest, leading to the popular perception that this was the point when historically significant things started to happen.  Ireland and (most of) Scotland weren't conquered by the Romans, and so didn't become literate until later, with Christianization.  Q: Does popular perception of history in Scotland and Ireland treat this point a significant boundary between "nothing important (or at least relevant to the modern day) happened" and "this is the start of our real history"?  Or does the fact that it was a later event, and probably more gradual, mean people are lest likely to perceive it as such a fundamental boundary?
 * 2) The Norman conquest of England marked a very distinct change in society, cemented England as a distinct and unified kingdom, and was the last time England was successfully conquered.  As such, it marks a distinct point in English perceptions of history, as another divide between people and events that aren't particularly significant and meaningful, and those that fundamentally affect later times.  Q: Given that the English and/or Norman conquests of the rest of Britain and Ireland were later, messier, and more protracted, are they seen as similar dividing points, or are they seen more as interruptions in a more continuous history? Iapetus (talk) 09:33, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * English legal history, of course, began on 6 July 1189... Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi  09:55, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The first King of Scotland usually cited is Kenneth MacAlpin, whose reign usually marks (from a historiographical perspective) the transition from the Kingdom of the Picts to the Kingdom of Alba, but I don't know that such a moment is as significant to Scottish history as is 1066 to the English. Ireland similarly had Niall of the Nine Hostages, whose historicity is doubted.   -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 10:49, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Ireland has an extensive traditional "history", featuring named kings and other individuals, battles and so on, stretching back to the Flood. Today, historians don't accept anything before the 5th century as historical, and anything from the 5th century to the 7th is considered not entirely reliable. But there are at least stories and traditions of people and events from before the coming of Christianity, and as recently as the mid-20th century there were respectable scholars like T. F. O'Rahilly who were trying to make history out of them. The only traditions Britain has of life before the Romans are in Geoffrey of Monmouth, and pretty much everybody reputable is convinced Geoffrey made them up. John Morris is probably the closest thing Britain has to O'Rahilly, a modern scholar trying to make history out of traditional "Dark Age" materials, and he ignores Geoffrey. In early modern times, Ireland had Geoffrey Keating and Britain had Raphael Holinshed, who both attempted to construct a history of their countries out of traditional materials. --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:19, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * To be fair, if we take history to mean "The names of Really Important People", then yeah, we don't know much about pre-Roman British Isles. However, archaeology can still tell us a lot about social history and the organization of society, commercial activity, etc.  We can still know much of the past even if it wasn't written down.  Prehistoric Britain has some links that lead places.  If history is "what people have recorded on their own" then history of Pre-Roman Britain is scarce.  If history is "What we can know about the past", then we know somewhat more than that.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 12:31, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It's quite surprising that Æthelstan doesn't have the same status in popular English history. Deb (talk) 10:58, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As we know; new regimes always rubbish their forebearers :) <sub style="color:green;">Fortuna  <sup style="color:red;">Imperatrix Mundi  12:39, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

When were totem poles first descibed in writing?
The mysterious absence of the Great Pyramids in the accounts of Western visitors (above) got me thinking. Totem poles are massive and impressive objects, yet my understanding is that early European explorers of the west coast of North America didn't mention them. I've looked at Maritime fur trade and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast but can't find what I'm looking for. Two things really: 1) what were the first written descriptions of the totem poles? and 2) why do modern scholars believe that it took so long for these giant carvings to reach the written record? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 13:13, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The giant poles we now expect do not seem to have been carved much before 1800 - it was only with the introduction of imported iron and steel tools that the local populations of the Pacific coast were able to carve on that scale. Earlier carving appears to have been mostly house posts, door frames, and similar smaller objects. A check on an online dictionary gave the first use of the words "totem pole" as 1808. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 13:30, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, the third in the triumvirate of guns, germs, and steel. Good point. But the house entry poles, part of the structure of the architecture, were substantial and eye-catching, even if they weren't as tall as the free-standing carved poles. I'm looking for passages written by European explorers and traders before the term "totem pole" had come into use. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This book, pages 19-20 lists 4 reports from the late 1700's. Rmhermen (talk) 17:15, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's helpful. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 10:15, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Magyar raids in Northern France?
Hey people, Did the Magyars ever reach Northern France, to where Abbeville is? Please provide reliable sources.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.233.173.11 (talk) 23:46, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This Magyar certainly made it to Northern France at one point. Not sure if he ever specifically visited Abbeville.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 01:31, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


 * This image from our article on Hungary does show extensive campaigns into many areas of France including the North. Kalandozasok.jpg  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 07:32, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Also, see Hungarian invasions of Europe, page down to the timeline, years 936-937, which mentions a battle in Orleans, and then following the course of the Loire to reach the Atlantic Ocean. -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 10:45, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Hungarian invasions of Europe refers to a raid in 919 on West Francia, a region that included Picardie (no source, alas, but it may be worth looking at the writings of Flodoard, a West Frankish chronicler). This book mentions a Magyar raid on Cambrai. 184.147.128.57 (talk) 10:46, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello again 140.233.et cetera! I couldn't find a way to contact you, but there is now a translation of the Customs of Lorris for you on Wikisource! Hopefully you'll see it here... Adam Bishop (talk) 22:27, 17 May 2016 (UTC)