Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 April 20

= April 20 =

Essex, Wessex, Sussex, and ?
Essex is where the East Saxons were from; similarly Wessex (west) and Sussex (south). Norsex redirects to "Saxons" but was it or anything like it ever used as the name of a place? Were there actually any North Saxons, for that matter? Tx. (Inspiration: ) 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 00:20, 20 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I would say not that Essex is where the East Saxons were from, rather that Essex is the eastern part of where the Saxons settled. Also, don't forget Middlesex. —Tamfang (talk) 01:12, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * As Tamfang says, the names relate to who settled where in what would become called Engla Londe, Angle-land or "England", which eventually settled into the (shifting) divisions of the Heptarchy.
 * The reason there was no "Norsex" is because the area immediately to the north of the East, Middle and West Saxons' territory was settled by the East Angles (in what is now known as "East Anglia") and South Saxons in what became become the Kingdom of Mercia: this latter absorbed the sub-kingdom of Hwicce whose several tribes were at least partly Saxon, so these might be thought of as "North Saxons" although they used more localised tribal names.
 * One could write an amusing counterfactual history in which the inter-kingdom rivalries had different outcomes, resulting in a Norsex and other transformed entities like a more prominent Hallamshire and greater prominence for the Jutes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.219.35.136 (talk) 05:29, 20 April 2021 (UTC).

Such a loss for the world of punning. "Are the people in Nossex getting any?" etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:48, 20 April 2021 (UTC)


 * According to this discussion, the Annals of Ulster mention that in 913 AD, "... Etulb King of the North Saxons died”, which is thought to refer to Eadwulf II of Northumbria. So, perhaps the North Saxons were in the Kingdom of Northumbria, although a considerable distance from the South Saxons. However, note that in all the Celtic languages, the word for an English person is derived from "Saxon", see Sasanach. Alansplodge (talk) 10:42, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Norsex please, we're British. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:45, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "No Saesnigs please, we're Welsh". Martinevans123 (talk) 11:02, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That's enough of your Sawson! Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 20 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The Saxons were a prodigious and mobile group of settlers; besides the Essex, Wessex, Middlesex, and Sussex in England, a large swathe of the land of modern Germany is named after them, including three Bundesländer (see Saxony, Lower Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt). By contrast, the Jutes only have Jutland (mainland Denmark and part of extreme northern German) named after them, while the Angles only a small part of Jutland (specifically Anglia) and East Anglia.  Well, and of course all of England.  -- Jayron 32 12:34, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Not forgetting, of course. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:43, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a lot of knife-lands. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:56, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * New England --Khajidha (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Old England. Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Not as good as a box of swans. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Legal terms: "malice aforethought" and treacherous behavior
I'm currently trying to sort out a potential mixup at Wikidata but I need some factual help. The current entry for malice aforethought (Q567057) links to entries in other Wikipedias that don't really fit in my opinion. The other entries (e.g. de:Heimtücke, es:Alevosía, fr:Traîtrise etc.) seem to be about the concept of killing or harming another person in a treacherous way, i.e. by betraying their trust and committing the act while the victim is unsuspecting (e.g. Assassination of Julius Caesar). On the other hand, as I understand it, "malice aforethought" just means that the perpetrator's plan is to kill or hurt the victim but it does not require the victim to be unsuspecting. Is that correct?In German law, I would classify this as de:Absicht (Recht) (Q332297), i.e. the perpetrator is acting to achieve the result (death of the victim), unlike "direkter Vorsatz" (result is known but not necessarily wanted) or "bedingter Vorsatz" (result is seen as possibility but accepted as a potential side effect).Is there a special crime of killing an unsuspecting victim in Common Law jurisdictions? Regards So  Why  07:13, 20 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The other-language articles appear to be about the concept of treachery in the sense of betrayal of trust, which is not in itself a crime, but an aggravating circumstance of certain crimes. I think Absicht corresponds in a legal sense to criminal intent, in legal Latin mens rea. Malice aforethought goes a notch further; it also requires premeditation: a certain amount of maliciously intentful preparation. If Sir Abbott, in the heat of an argument, casts aspersions on the fidelity of the mother of Sir Costello, and the latter gets so furious he draws his sword and slays Sir Abbott, it was an intentional act, but not premeditated. If, however, he does not have his sword on him, but goes home, has a meal, and then, still brewing over the insult, girds his sword, knocks the door of Sir Abbott's abode, and, when the latter opens the door, slays him, a jury would likely interpret this as premeditated murder. The German term is, I think, (Verbrechen) mit Vorbedacht, which, however, has no entry on the German Wikipedia. I am not aware of a special crime or even term for killing an unsuspecting victim in any jurisdiction. I expect that prosecutors generally would not be eager to charge a suspect with a crime imposing the burden of proof that the victim was unsuspecting, which involves the mental state of the victim – whereas proving betrayal of trust is essentially material. --Lambiam 10:51, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe Sir Lou killed Sir Bud because Sir Bud didn’t know that the style 'Sir' is only ever used with the individual's first name. And that would make it justifiable homicide. --24.76.103.169 (talk) 04:12, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * These are all side issues. The central question is the legal doctrine of Quis est in primis? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:57, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the German Penal Code defines "murder" (Mord) as killing a person while also meeting a special requirement ("Mordmerkmal"), which might be subjective (such as killing out of base motives, killing to prevent persecution for another crime etc.) or objective (killing an unsuspecting person, using a weapon which might potentially harm a lot of people (e.g. a bomb) etc.). There is no actual crime in German law for killing someone with a plan per se if it does not fit any of the Mordmerkmale. Which explains my dilemma here. Regards So  Why  12:51, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In general, it will be much easier to investigate the motives of a suspect taken in custody than the mental state of a deceased victim at or shortly preceding their death. In sentencing, judges will generally weigh the vileness of the crime and other aggravating circumstances when determining the severity of the sentence, but if there are Common Law jurisdictions that have a codified analogue of Heimtücke in their sentencing guidelines, I'm not aware of it. If I understand what you say about the Mordmerkmal criterion, if someone maliciously kills a victim, they cannot be convicted of murder in Germany if they succeed in hiding their motive, so that it cannot be established whether this was out of some base instinct or to obtain some unlawful advantage. Interesting. --Lambiam 15:15, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In Germany, killing someone intentionally is "Totschlag" and "Mord" (murder) is what is called a "Qualifikation". Aggravation probably is a good translation and is also the interwiki link for it. It's basically aggravating circumstances codified into law. So if you kill someone without meeting any of those criteria, it will only be Totschlag, which is often incorrectly translated as Manslaughter. Manslaughter, however, seems to consider malice aforethought again (or the lack thereof) to distinguish it from murder while in German law, you can have prior intent to kill and still not meet the definition of murder. Regards So  Why  16:36, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So Why Perhaps some answer in the following. The concept of treachery, french Guet-apens which you alluded to was in fact removed from the french text in 1992. Usage and jurispridence since a hundred years and more so it was said tended to conclusions it added nothing to mens rea (approx préméditation). It was nonetheless reintroduced in 2007; for the need it seems of covering a gap arising between the intents behind "simple" murder and those regarding assassination: https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-science-criminelle-et-de-droit-penal-compare-2010-3-page-545.htm  (f).  --Askedonty (talk) 13:17, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't speak French, so I had to run these through GTranslate but isn't fr:Préméditation en droit pénal français equivalent to malice aforethought then while the "guet-apens" is more like the German "Heimtücke" in that you are waiting for unsuspecting people to show up? Regards So  Why  14:26, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that's right. Also my impression is that the term "malice" may be carrying some expectations regarding the judge's evaluations of facts which already include aspects of treachery less explicitly suggested by usage possibly in the other languages. --Askedonty (talk) 14:57, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * According to our article, it comes from the French "malice prépensée", so you tell me. Regards  So  Why  16:38, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, looking at the redirection notes following our French law link Law French is a dialect of French used in English courts. Two other sample sentences in the article are "mallice prepensed" and "malice devant pourpense". Devant means before or afore and pourpense is from "pensare", think or thought. As for malice etymologicaly the first line of meaning is "evilness", the second is "trickery" indeed, both of which are not explicitly referred to in "préméditation", at least where French is concerned, although, implied its object is transgression. But an other aspect is interesting. "Malice devant pourpense" as well as the other forms literally could also be interpreted as "malice taking precedence over thought". Which is basically the same consideration as with de:Absicht (Recht) ( kognitiv -> thought; Willens -> evil ), and it may be interpreted so because abscons language may not be handled intelligently without considering how a related position could end by getting overturned. Askedonty (talk) 00:15, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

US - Allowing for Women to lead local congregations - Majority?
In the United States, do more people who belong to a church belong to a church that allows women to lead local congregations or more that don't? So pretty much *any* reform Jew would count as "do" regardless of whether their particular Synagogue is led by a man or a woman, but any Roman Catholic or Latter Day Saint don't. And does the "don't" category represent a majority of the US Population? (so "don't" as opposed to "do"+ non church members) Naraht (talk) 13:55, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This is pretty easy to put together from Religion in the United States. From that article, and its subsidiary articles (such as Christianity in the United States) we can put together some numbers; we can work most of this out.  Of the five largest Christian denominations (Roman Catholic, SBC, UMC, LDS, and COGIC), only the United Methodist Church allows for women to lead a local congregation, the remaining 4 denominations account for a little less than 104,000,000 people, which is somewhat less than 1/3 of the U.S. population.  However, the big issue in working this out is that the largest "grouping" of Christians in the U.S. is "Other"; which is to say that most American Christians belong to a local church that doesn't belong to one of the larger denominations, even when we take that list down to the top 20 or so denominations, the if you add up all of the denomination from 20-whatever, that group in total is still the largest single group of Christians; it's a daunting task to consider picking through that list individually.  I suspect that when it all shakes out, given that 4 of the 5 largest denominations don't allow for Women pastors, it'll end up being somewhat more than 50% of American religious believers belong to congregations that don't allow women pastors, and that number will only be affected in a small amount by other religions, as they account for only a small percentage of the American populace as a whole.  -- Jayron 32 14:52, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, whether the SBC likes it or not, there are Southern Baptist churches with female pastors. --Khajidha (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There are baptist churches in the south with female pastors. There are other Baptist denominations, many of which allow female pastors, most notably the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which has a large number of southern (small s) baptist congregations affiliated with it.  Which is not to say that there are exactly zero congregations that both a) belong to the SBC and b) have a woman pastor, I would allow that being a complex diverse world, you can find exemplars of just about anything; however for the purpose of counting people, the number of people who belong to such a congregation is insignificant; the SBC still directly and unambiguously disallows women serving as pastors.  -- Jayron 32 15:23, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * See Southern Baptist Convention --Khajidha (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, as that article notes, while the SBC can not force a congregation to not hire a woman pastor, it can, and does, throw out congregations that do so (using the euphemism "disfellowship"). They not only disallow women pastors, they frequently act to enforce that rule by throwing congregations out of the organization.  Thanks for verifying my own point on this.  -- Jayron 32 16:08, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Except that such disfellowship is not automatic, so that a local congregation having a female pastor does not disqualify it from being a member of the SBC. I will agree that such would be rare. --Khajidha (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Following due process does not invalidate a rule?!? Your argument that the SBC doesn't have a rule because they follow a process to remove a congregation that violates that rule seems strange.  Merely because there is a process to enforce the rule doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist.  The rule does exist, and it is enforced.  It doesn't stop existing merely because there is some process in place to enforce it!  -- Jayron 32 16:45, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The "rule" is part of the Baptist Faith & Message (BF& M) and the BF&M is not required. So, if it is not required to follow the rule to be a Southern Baptist church, how can the rule be used to deny that a church is a Southern Baptist church?--Khajidha (talk) 17:07, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If it isn't required, why do they throw out churches that don't adhere by it? Again, you're confusing "being a member of the Southern Baptist Convention" with "being Southern and also being Baptist".  Churches which are members of the Southern Baptist Convention and violate the rules things-which-you-insist-aren't-rules-but-behave-in ways-that-are-entirely-indistinguishably-from-rules-so-can-we-just-call-them-rules get thrown out of the Convention.  You can't have your cake and eat it to here.  You can't say "You don't have to follow this if you don't want" and then make sure people who don't follow it are thrown out.  That doesn't make any sense.  Either its optional or its not, and if it isn't optional it's a rule.  Again, you can be Baptist and you an be Southern and you can have a woman pastor.  But if you belong to the Southern Baptist Convention and call a Woman Pastor to lead your congregation, they will throw your ass out.  Sounds like they don't allow women pastors.  -- Jayron 32 18:28, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Episcopal Church does allow. Blueboar (talk) 15:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, but the Episcopal Church accounts for less than 1% of the U.S. population as a whole, and a bit more than 1% of religious Americans. As I noted above, getting from the about 30% total accounted for by the 4 denominations noted that do NOT allow women up to the total population of the U.S. is a small numbers game; adding Episcopalians to the UMC (which is not the only branch of Methodism, some denominations don't allow for Women pastors) doesn't get us that close to the 50% threshold the OP asked about.  It could be so, but as I noted I suspect the number is less than 50% given the head start the "no women pastors" group has in the denominations I noted above.  -- Jayron 32 15:23, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking that the churches I went to when I was a kid were part of 'groupings' of churches, which might (rarely) disassociate from congregations if they don't like what they do, but aren't in fact an authority over them and the churches are not subservient to them. There are a lot of independent churches in America. They'll make their own rules. Some of them won't have rules against female preachers, but will be reluctant to hire them anyway. That makes this harder to answer. Temerarius (talk) 18:35, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I noted that above; the largest "grouping" of Christians in America is "Other", and you have to make the list of top denominations really long until it isn't. It's what makes gathering statistics on this so hard... -- Jayron 32 19:05, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Change in location
My question is about Cumberland County Tennessee and it being considered a county in East TN. All my years of attending school here, we were taught that our county was in Middle TN not East TN. So WHEN did it's designation change from Middle TN to East TN??? I haven't been able to find any information on when this happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.76.146.158 (talk) 22:05, 20 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Courtesy links: Cumberland County, Tennessee, East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee. DuncanHill (talk) 22:12, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * See also Grand Divisions of Tennessee. DuncanHill (talk) 22:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Following a reference in the above I found this which says that Cumberland County was moved from Middle to East in 1932. DuncanHill (talk) 22:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * A county is a large object. How much did it cost to make that move? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:44, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Similarly I often want to remove the word "located" from the description of a place. When was Kamchatka, say, located in eastern Asia? Who decided to locate it there?  Was it relocated from somewhere else? – On a related note, I was often tempted, when my boss told me to "locate" a file, to reply that it was on such-and-such a shelf. —Tamfang (talk) 03:57, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * A one-word synonym for locate in the sense of finding out where something is located is localize, which, unfortunately, is equally horribly ambiguous. --Lambiam 12:42, 21 April 2021 (UTC)


 * This sounds a LOT like the Counties of England, which have a wide variety of definitions depending on context. As a cultural division, the three regions of Tennessee are roughly divided by the U-shaped Tennessee River, which divides the state neatly into three roughly equal-sized areas.  Under that definition, Cumberland County is in Central Tennessee (it lies in the middle of the U-shape). As an officially-designated geographic division, they are codified in law, and under the law in question, Cumberland County is defined (and has been since said law was passed) as part of East Tennessee.  See here, which defines the Eastern Division as including Cumberland County.  The last amendment to this provision was in 1948, so at LEAST since 1948 has Cumberland County been a legal part of East Tennessee, but it could have been one of the earlier amendments that put it there. -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 18:53, 21 April 2021 (UTC)