Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages/General/Jan 2005-April 2007

Category:Middle Ages
Reminder: The Wikipedia Index has been checked for all entries beginning "Medieval *" and the Category:Middle Ages has been added to the entries (a couple weren't relevant:Goth music etc). This check is complete as of January 12, 2005. Please Search "Medieval * and click on Index every whenever and brand any new mavericks. Thanks. (Keep this note at the head.) --Wetman 01:11, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I've added Category:History by Period to Category:Middle Ages. I note that there is also a somewhat eclectic Category:Medieval history already connected to History by Period. PWilkinson 19:14, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Book of the Civilized Man
Any thoughts or suggestions on what other articles might link to this article? It currently has no incoming links (a kind of death-knell for Wikipedia) .. not sure what might be appropriate. Stbalbach 09:33, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

First Crusade Featured
As of Dec 27 2004, First Crusade is a featured article! Congrats to everyone who took up the cross.

It's listed on the featured article page under the "War" category, which implies a POV; do we want to move to the History sub-cat? Stbalbach 13:03, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Technological revolution of the 12th and 13th centuries
Somewhere between the 12th and 13th century in Europe there was a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. In less than a century there were more inventions developed and applied usefully than in the previous thousand years of human history all over the globe. The black death put a sudden end to this massive change, which took up centuries later and evolved into the Industrial Revolution which we are still going through. Alfred Crosby described a lot of it in The Measure of Reality : Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600 but other major historians of Technology have also noted this. Right now we don't have any article on technology on the middle ages in general in Wikipedia. In fact we don't have ones on particular technologies invented in the middle ages. Tgis means starting from zero with nothing to link to or link from. So, where to start? The task seems so hopeless that I am going back to writing about typewriter history before WWI and after that the Bendix aviation electric company of the 40s and 50s, and after that the fundamentals of Carthaginan commerce and after that... --AlainV 01:42, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * One suggestion to start would be Middle Ages with a sub-section on technology, a one paragraph summary, which points to a main article, for example Medieval technology, which fits with the rest of the "Medieval" series (see Template:Middle_Ages_Tall). Then Medieval technology covers the significant advances and branches off to specific main articles on each technology (Medieval technology (plow)). However its structured, it's a good idea that has yet to be covered. --Stbalbach 02:23, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I've made a start at Middle Ages simply following AlainV and Stbalbach's suggestions. Check it out. --Wetman 16:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for convention for manuscript names
The recent listing of British Library, Add. MS 5111. 7th century Gospel Book fragment on VfD has shown a need for a Wikipedia naming convention for manuscripts. This would only be needed for manuscripts that do not have "common" names (e.g. Book of Kells). My initial thought was that institutional shelf numbers often act as names for manuscripts, and so could be used in much the same way that a binomial name is used for organisms. In the first article I created for a manuscript without a name (Durham Cathedral Library A. II. 10. Gospel Book Fragment) I added the descriptive phrase "Gospel Book Fragment" almost as an afterthought. I have followed this convention ever since. However, after the MS 5111 article was listed on VfD, Warofdreams changed the name of the article to 7th century Gospel Book fragment (British Library, Add. MS 5111) saying the new name " is more user-friendly. It describes the object first, then gives the catalogue number to disambiguate it from other 7th century Gospel Book fragments." Interestingly, I received a copy today via Interlibrary Loan of Kurt Weitzmann's, Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination which names this manuscript as "The London Canon Tables". So I have changed the name of the article…again. However the issue of naming unnamed manuscripts remains. WarofDreams' system has the advantage of making the article title read much as it would in a textbook. One possible drawback is that for some manuscripts the title could be misleading; for example an article entitled Simeon Metaphrastes' Lives of Saints. (British Library, Add. MS 11870 might cause a reader to conclude that the only copy of Simeon is MS 11870, which may or may not be true. I think, however, that that problem can be worked around. All of that said, I would like to propose the following:


 * If a manuscript has an English name, the manuscript's article should be under that name. (See below for exception)
 * Manuscript names in other languages should be translated into English, unless the manuscript is widely known in English scholarship under a name in another language. (e.g. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Vergilius Vaticanus)
 * If a manuscript has multiple names, the most common should be used (e.g. Book of Kells). If it cannot be determined which name is most common, the name used by the owner of the manuscript should be used. (e.g. Lichfield Gospels).
 * If there is no English name and one can be constructed that will unambiguously refer to the manuscript, then that name may be used. This is most useful for manuscripts that are the only one of its type within a particular collection. A name can be constructed by combining the name of the city or town, institution, or collection with the type of manuscript (e.g. Ranworth Antiphoner)
 * If none of the above apply an article name should be constructed using the following formula:
 * Manuscript Description (City, Institution, Shelf Number)
 * Only the information that is necessary to identify the manuscript should be used within the parentheses. In practice this would mean that the name of the city could often be left out. Dsmdgold 10:17, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this because it is non-standard. Manuscripts are very commonly, to the point of almost invariably, referred to by city, library, shelf-number, regardless of whether or not the city is recoverable. Moreover, the usual method is much better practice: libraries change names faster than cities: even the Leningrad Bede has changed library names more often than city name. User:daniel.odonnell. March 18, 2006.
 * I wrote this convention in response to a VfD on an article I wrote, where another editor objected to an article name with a shelfmark in it, because the title was long and ugly. When I wrote this section, I was thinking of only world-famous institutions. I saw ambiguity in listing some thing as (British Library, Cotton Vitellius A XV) since anyone interested in manuscripts would know the city for the BL.  About the only libraries I would omit the city for are the BL, the Bodleian, the Vatican Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, and the Library of Congress. So far as I can remember, the BL is the only institution which I have used in a title and not used the city. However, it would not hurt my feelings to see this section dropped. Dsmdgold 13:36, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This looks like an excellent convention. I entirely agree that the last form should be used only if there is no accepted name and no unambiguously constructable name. Warofdreams 11:38, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * This seems very sensible, the most user-friendly approach. I'd add that there should always be a redirect from a shelf number, e.g. entering "British Library, Add. MS 11870" should automatically redirect to Simeon Metaphrastes' Lives of Saints. (British Library, Add. MS 11870. Then we won't lose any of our readers. --Wetman 16:13, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Dsmgold you also created List of Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts to nicely tie all the manuscripts together (a great resource BTW which needs more incoming links so more people find it). The nameing convention should logically follow inside the article. Currently, that is not the case, so I wonder if this new nameing pattern will fit in well with a long list, or be confusing? Or is the plan to update and change? Or, to keep the separate nameing conventions, one for article names and one for listing? Just some thoughts. --Stbalbach 21:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the kind words. And yes, the (mostly red) links on the list should be formatted according to whatever naming convention is finally accepted. Next week  sometime, if the response to my proposal is positive, I will probably start reformatting the links. As for the list itself, I will continue the current format: sorted by century an within each century sorted alphabetically by city, institution, and shelf number, followed by the link.Dsmdgold 00:57, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Subcategory:Medieval biographies
What say we collect all biographies of Europeans (and others?) whose careers fell between 500 CE and 1500 CE? Few are collected now at Category:Middle Ages, and if they were, they'd clog the plumbing. I'm not sure how to create this and get it into the table etc. Create the framework somebody, and I'll pitch in to fill it... --Wetman 01:36, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Medieval society
Hunting through all the "Medieval *" entries recently, this stood out to me as important and in the most urgent need of improvement of all I saw... --Wetman 01:36, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Hadn't seen that before.. what a great place to tie together a lot of articles. I've created some structure and droped in a few articles .. there must be a ton more. I think once we get enough articles in there, it should be possible to write up some paragraphs for a more encyclopedic and less list-like presentation. It is a very broad topic. Good place to start an umbrella. BTW I removed the opening paragraph (hopefully the anon user from 2003 won't mind) it was not very accurate or on topic, should not be about political aspects, which is allready well covered elsewhere. Stbalbach 02:50, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Having just seen the article History of British society, they took a much different approach to a "society" type article then the structure I set up for Medieval life -- in truth Medieval society and Medieval life could be separate articles (right now society points to life)... --Stbalbach 22:48, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Classifications and Templates
I was reading on ORB the section What Every Medievalist Should Know by Professor James Marchand. He approaches the problem by categorizing the Middle Ages in to about 49 classifications. Such as "medieval art" (he calls it "iconography") ect.. on Wikipedia we have just a handful of these, which are listed in "Middle Ages Tall" and other Templates. The problem is, these Templates are limited in size and thus really can't do justice to the large and varied topics of Medieval studies. They work now just because we have a limited number of articles written, but IMO serve to limit what can be represented. Any thoughts or suggestions on approaches to this problem on Wikipedia? Some kind of master framework .. a Templace or Article or somthing else.. to represent the major top-level entry in to Medieval thematic areas of study. Whatever it is, it should have reasonably unlimited expansion potential.

One idea is to create a Middle Ages Template which leads to a more complete listing. The Template might list a handful of the more popular topics (history, art, education) and then have a "Click for more.." link. Thoughts? --Stbalbach 19:51, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Völkerwanderung
People are discussing how to handle the cluster of articles round Migrations period Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, and y'all could help. --Wetman 23:11, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to restructure Category:Middle Ages and its subcategories
Category:Middle Ages and its subcategories in their current state are a bit of a mess that does not really serve to make navigation of our Medieval articles easier. I'd propose to restructure the category according to the following scheme. Ideally, after the scheme has been implemented, no article should remain in the top-level category or one of the immediate subcategories. I'm open to discussion about all the category names, but I think a well-planned category structure is going to make things a lot easier. Here's what I have in mind: I'm sure there are lots of subcategories to be added, but we'll certainly be able to work out which categories are needed...I'd also volunteer to do the grunt work of moving all articles to their new categories (if we can agree on the categorization scheme), but help would of course be appreciated -- Ferkelparade &pi; 10:22, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Middle Ages
 * Middle Ages by region
 * Middle Ages in Europe
 * Middle Ages in England
 * Middle Ages in Germany
 * Middle Ages in Asia
 * Middle Ages in Japan
 * Middle Ages in China
 * Middle Ages by topic
 * Medieval Culture
 * Medieval art
 * Medieval architecture
 * Medieval literature
 * Medieval science
 * Medieval wars
 * Crusades
 * 100 years war
 * Medieval religion
 * Chrisianity in the Middle Ages
 * Islam in the Middle Ages
 * People of the Middle Ages
 * Medieval rulers
 * Medieval artists
 * Medieval scientists
 * Middle Ages in popular culture
 * Books about the Middle Ages
 * Movies about the Middle Ages
 * Games about the Middle Ages
 * Medieval rulers
 * Medieval artists
 * Medieval scientists
 * Middle Ages in popular culture
 * Books about the Middle Ages
 * Movies about the Middle Ages
 * Games about the Middle Ages
 * Games about the Middle Ages


 * This is a good idea, categories are kind of messed up in general, and attempts to organize them are really difficult (even organizing the Crusades subcategory into subcategories of its own is a challenge). I think your scheme is pretty good, but is "Middle Ages in Asia" a good idea? I know Japan and China have sort of "feudal" periods, but what do you mean by a categorization like that? Adam Bishop 02:49, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I also think that this is a good idea. I also think that the idea of "Middle Ages in Asia" is somewhat dubious.  I assume that we would allow for articles to belong to multiple subcategories.  For example Edward the Confessor would clearly need to belong to both "Middle Ages in England" (or the sub-category of the preceding,  "Anglo-Saxon England") and "Medieval Rulers". Dsmdgold 14:15, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * I would suggest a separate document of Style or Guidelines be created for the purpose of the Category list, from which future editors can reference, edit and discuss. The Middle Ages was a thousand year period as complex and dynamic as our own, it is deceptively easy to categorize, and surely will change over time. I would also suggest looking at how professionals in the field have categorized the period and draw from that, there are a number of examples. Stbalbach 15:41, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm not adamant on the "Middle Ages in Asia" category - I guess that depends on the underlying definition of "Middle Ages" (a period in European history vs. a period in world history, which is of course a highly debatable issue - I've seen both definitions used in a number of publications). The main reason I included Asia was that it seemed necessary to somehow include the Mongol Empire in the category scheme, but I won't insist on these "by region" categories if there's consensus against them.
 * And of course, I also assumed that individual articles can be in more than one category - wanted to mention it in my previous post, but it seemed so obvious I forgot to add it :P -- Ferkelparade &pi; 09:45, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Robber barons...
...could use some help. History stops short in the 13th century. See also Talk:Robber baron. I don't have the knowledge/sources/time to clean it up myself; could somebody else take a shot? Lupo 20:50, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Burgage
Burgage is on VFD as a simple definition. Surely it can be expanded! Adam Bishop 05:53, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Second Crusade FA Canidate
Voting is open for Second Crusade article. Featured article candidates/Second Crusade. Stbalbach 20:46, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merging slave trade articles
Although Slave trade in the Middle Ages and Slavery in medieval Europe cover slightly different areas I don't see that two articles are really warranted for this subject unless they were expanded in very diferent directions. Thoughts? MeltBanana 19:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Could add a {merge} to the top of each. Stbalbach 20:00, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Help with Bishop of Lindisfarne
I think I need some help with the Bishop of Lindisfarne list that I've been compiling. I'm OK with the bishops' articles I've been creating to date, the confusion sets in over what exactly happened to the see when it transferred to Chester-le-Street. The Internet is proving rather unreliable as there appear to be as many sources citing that they remained bishops of Lindisfarne just in a different location, as those that claim they became Bishops of Chester-le-Street. Our own Bishop of Durham article claims that Aldhun of Durham was the last Bishop of Lindisfarne, which is why I've called all the other bishops in between "of Lindisfarne", I just want to double check that I'm not creating a gigantic mess that has to be sorted out at a later date. -- Francs2000 | Talk 10:11, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Dark Age VfD
Dark Age is being Voted for Deletion. See Articles for deletion/Dark age. Stbalbach 03:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

British History Timelines
The Timeline_of_British_history is in dire need of repair, I have suggested some improvements on the talk page and have inserted all English monarchs into the 1000-1499 line. I would be grateful for any help on this project as timelines are very useful forms of information for users.

--Hahaandy1 15:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Dukes of Franconia
A page for the Dukes of Franconia should be made, considering we already have pages for the other stem duchies of the HRE. I realize that Franconia's status was special since it was often attached to the crown, but it did have its own line of dukes and I hate how wikipedia tends to avoid pointing out who the dukes were. For example, Henry III's page lists him as Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, but not Franconia. I'd make the page myself, but I there are certain points on the ruling table that I am confused about, and I wouldn't want to put anything grossly accurate on the page.

--Ro4444 20:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Treaty of Wedmore
I believe the article on the Treaty of Wedmore has been confused with the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum (886-890). Please see my comments on its discussion page. Comments much appreciated! Harthacanute 22:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Alfred the Great
It seems to be very largely 1911 EB material, it has no references and it's generally poor, especially for such a well-known subject. Anyone fancy refurbishing it ? It's not difficult in itself - there are plenty of books on the subject and primary sources on the web - but it would probably take a good week's work (assuming you work as slowly as me) to do Alfred justice. It would be just the thing for someone who'd like to progress to working on longer articles. Volunteers ? Angus McLellan 23:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, it's not unique in that regard. If an article is EB1911 it's often best to just delete and start from scratch. Even a general outline will open it up for others to contribute and fill in details. Personally I can't work on it right now, but would support starting over, keeping any original wikipedia work that's good. -- Stbalbach 01:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Tristan and Iseult pages
The pages about Tristan and Iseult are in a confused state right now, largely due to the spelling of Iseult's name. I made some suggestions at Talk:Tristan about rectifying this.--Cúchullain t / c 21:46, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Economic history of France - Middle Ages
The article Economic history of France is in need of a section on the medieval French economy. Volunteers? --NYArtsnWords 17:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Naming of Kings of Dál Riata
The article on Dalriada was renamed Dál Riata. Logically, the next step is to excise "Dalriada" from WP except as a parenthesised explanatory term and as a redirect. Unfortunately, there rather a lot of articles on (supposed) kings of Dál Riata which were, for the best of reasons, named X_of_Dalriada. While renaming them X_of_Dál_Riata is certainly an option, it seems second best (to me) for reasons I have set out at Talk:List of Kings of Dalriada. The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Medieval Gaels) may be useful for background. Comments from editors interested in the Early Middle Ages, even if not in Scottish & Irish matters, would be particularly helpful. Thanks in advance. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:26, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Caedmon
Caedmon vote is open for Featured Article status. Featured article candidates/Cædmon. -- Stbalbach 14:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Joan
Could knowledgable people take a look at Talk:Joan of England for some questions about naming and correct disambiguation? Thanks John (Jwy) 23:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages
By Henry Charles Lea, Volume I (1887), on Wikisource. Links to scans available, only some chapters have been changed into text so far - help needed to OCR or type in the rest of the book, and also to proofread the chapters which have been made available.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_History_of_the_Inquisition_of_the_Middle_Ages_Vol._I

-- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bravehearted (talk • contribs).

Maintained By
As an experiment, Ive added a 'Maintained By' tag to the talk page of William Neville, 1st Earl of Kent. I really need to stress I'm not claiming ownership of this page. However, if anyone wants to make any major changes to this page, I'd really like to know where they got their information from. I'd be greatful for some feedback, as there are a few other pages I'm working on that I'd like to add this tag to. Thewiltog 20:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Older Featured Articles
There appears to be a drive on to remove featured status for any featured article that does not have in-line footnotes. No one seems sure when this began, but probably sometime in the past 6 to 12 months, when footnotes became required, but picking up recently in the past few months. They are working through the list, but I imagine they will get to them all sooner or later. The list of featured articles related to the Middle Ages can be seen here, I think a large number of them do not have footnotes. -- Stbalbach 18:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The list of Middle Ages featured articles with citation problems can be seen here. -- Stbalbach 19:32, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * There appears to be a drive on to remove featured status  This is not an accurate statement. There has long been a requirement that Featured articles be cited, there is no drive (much less a drive to "remove" status), nothing has picked up pace (you can see the relevant stats clearly at WP:FAR), and in fact, the FAR process has been expanded to allow longer time for articles to comply to FA standards and to allow many editors to get involved in the process of restoring older FAs to status. Sandy (Talk) 19:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well lets put it this way, there are users out there, connected with FAR or not, who are putting many older FA's up for review - FAR has no documented process for dealing with it. Basically once an article gets tagged by someone, anyone, at any time, you have about 4-8 weeks to fix it. I've asked continually for documentation on FAR's position and procedures on older FA's and they have none (various old talk page discussions) - older FA's are treated like every other article, there are no special rules or procedures. And some users seem to be specifically going after older FA's (that's what I mean by drive). -- Stbalbach 20:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Would you feel better if the purpose of WP:FAR was to examine brand new, fully-cited FAs which conform to all policies and just passed WP:FAC? You say there is no policy: the policy is clear.  FAR is for the review of FAs which don't conform to WP:WIAFA:  most of them *are*, by definition, older articles.  Sandy (Talk) 21:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Just letting people know what WP:FAR is, and that FAR is de-featuring articles on grounds of no in-line citations. -- Stbalbach 15:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's anything to worry about; it can only be good for the articles in the long run. If an article loses its status, we can surely apply to get it back again once the citations are in place, no matter how long after a time limit may have elapsed. Unfortunately, finding and cross-checking references is an appallingly slow and laborious task (I've spent hours and hours recently working offline on one two-thousand word section of a single article, and I've still not got everything nailed down yet), and it will undoubtedly take many years to get decent citing into the majority of articles.


 * Removal of status must be an emotional blow to the pride of those who wrote the articles and made sure that everything in the articles was covered by the references listed beneath, but the thing for those editors to remember is that the general reader doesn't know anything about that. As a reader, the stars mean nothing to me; I often don't even notice them. qp10qp 21:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Castles
Might I draw your attention to WikiProject Castles. Neddyseagoon - talk 13:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

On "Barbarian"
There is an ongoing discussion about the appropriate use of the term "Barbarian" when discussing the period of the later Roman Empire or Migration Period. Some feel the term barbarian is POV and should not be used on Wikipedia at all or only in quotes and rarely. Others feel it is a neutral legitimate term used by scholars of this period and appropriate in the right context. Your thoughts and ideas are welcome. It is currently being discussed at here. -- Stbalbach 14:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of the term Barbarian on Wikipedia
There is a new RfC on the proper use of the term "Barbarian" on Wikipedia. Talk:Barbarian/RfC on usage/. We really need some neutral and knowledgeable input on this subject. Thanks for your thoughts and input. -- Stbalbach 20:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It looks like the page was put to bed; at any rate, I've posted there regarding the putative superiority of "tribal" names as opposed to "barbarian", if anyone's still interested... SGilsdorf 14:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Crusader
A vote is currently open if Crusaders should re-direct to Crusades, or remain as the NZ Rugby team. See Talk:Crusaders to voice an opinion. -- Stbalbach 17:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Common misconceptions of the middle ages
Hello. I'm a relative newcomer to Wikipedia, and I haven't joined your wikiproject (yet) because I am already spreading myself too thinly over a number of pages, yet spending far too long here at the computer. However, I am interested in the Middle Ages and, in common with most of you, I am sure, frequently get irritated by inaccuracies, myths, misrepresentations and outright untruths about the Middle Ages constantly found in books, films, school text books, and (dare I say it) in some histories. Wikipedia is not immune, with many well-meaning people contributing what they 'read somewhere'. It is hard for a project like yourselves to police everything, and unlikely that most people will read each article to find where they are mistaken. This is all a long-winded way to say I have begun drafting a possible article about these misconceptions, at User:Gwinva/sandbox2. Please come and have a look. Is it worthwhile? Would others be interested in contributing to such a page? What should its scope or title be? How should it be used to link to articles within the project? etc etc. Drop a note on my talk page, or here (I'll watch this). Many thanks. Gwinva 16:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I just de-bunk stuff directly in the article in question, incorporate it into the main text, like at Children's Crusade or Magna Carta, it's more valuable and widely read and makes more sense in that context. "Common misconceptions" is an entertainment piece, something you'd find in a popular history book, random trivia. -- Stbalbach 15:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I'll concentrate on the articles. Thanks. Gwinva 07:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * More generally, you might want to drop a line to Steve Harris at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; he's working on a book that deals with this very issue (i.e., silly things that people believe about the European M.A.--daily witch burnings, never bathing, etc.). His e-mail is sharris@english.umass.edu.  SGilsdorf 13:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Knights Templar anniversary
FYI, I'm working on the Knights Templar article, with a goal of getting it to Featured status in time to appear on the mainpage on October 13, 2007, the 700-year anniversary of King Philip IV's arrests. We've got it to GA status so far, and are getting close to the FA nom, but still have some other cleanup to do, like standardizing references and expanding a few sections. Any and all help would be appreciated. :) --Elonka 00:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Khachkars
Hi, I'm trying to find a neutral WikiProject to adopt the articles Khachkar and Khachkar destruction to provide some unbiased guidance. Do they fit within the scope of this project? John Vandenberg 08:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Khachkar does, Khachkar destruction does not. -- Stbalbach
 * If this project could take a bit of ownership of the former, that would suffice. The latter doesnt matter so much, as (IMO) it is little more than a sub-article of Khachkar; it could be merged in except that the Afd closing admin needed to put a ban on Khachkar destruction being redirected, deleted, etc in order to prevent further edit wars. John Vandenberg 13:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Crécy at WP:ACID
The Battle of Crécy article has been nominated at the Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive. It is a key article for the Hundred Years War, and indeed one of the most important battles in medieval Europe (and should be important for any encyclopedia), yet it is only start class and fails on referencing sources.

I already notified the Military History project, but I thought I shoud mention it here too. --Grimhelm 16:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Cotton library full list?
I think it might be justifiable to have either a list of all the mss in the Cotton library, or a category for them. Every single ms is likely to be notable, after all, and I'd think they'd each have their own article eventually. In addition, a reader who sees a reference to a Cotton ms number somewhere may use that as the way to locate more information on that manuscript. Any comments? I thought I'd post a note before going off and starting such a list, in case someone has an objection I haven't thought of. I have also posted a note at Talk:Cotton library. Mike Christie (talk) 15:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hundred Years' War
Hey, doesn't the Hundred Years' War article fall under your domain? It's talk page says it's only been "adopted" bsp;— AnnaKucsma  (Talk to me!) 02:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I handled it myself. — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 16:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Norse history and culture
A new project has been started, covering every aspect of Norse culture and activity, primarily during the Middle Ages. Please join if you are interested in contributing! --Grimhelm 06:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject King Arthur
This project has been put up for proposal on WikiProject Council/Proposals. There are many pages on King Arthur lore which are in great need of better writing and organization. If you have an interest, please sign up! Wrad 19:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)