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Biography: Royalty and Nobility B‑class

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"The image of Egbert is an imaginary portrait drawn by an unknown artist" - that's pretty poor, and whoever wrote the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica was clearly out of his depth. Is there any case for retaining the image, given that (a) we don't know whose likeness it presents and (b) we don't know who carved it? Granted, the chances of an alternative image arising are very small. -Ashley Pomeroy 10:58, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Keep it; it's virtually worthless in practical terms, but people like illustrations. I don't know if we could find anything better to use. Everyking 11:18, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'd drop the pic myself - we have lots of pics already, people can cope without having one here. The imaginary pic is also misleading in that he certainly didn't wear a spiky crown, or a tunic of a type that wouldn't be developed until hundreds of years later, etc. Don't we have any of Egbert's coins to use instead? Even one with just a name would be better. What about charters? Stan 13:49, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Alfred was NOT King of England

Alfred was not the first person to receive title of King of England. That was Athelstan. Alfred was the self-styled 'King of the Anglo-Saxons.'White43 13:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

In addition to this - who exactly 'considered' him the first King of England? That's a weasel statement. The title King of England began with Athelstan. White43 13:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the intended reference is to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which did add Egbert to Bede's list of bretwaldas. The "bretwalda" article states clearly that this was not a contemporary title. However, the ASC's addition of Egbert is worth mentioning in this article, though I agree the phrasing you removed was poor. It's certainly a reference one runs into in history books, so I think it should be covered here. Mike Christie (talk) 14:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Egbert was styled as King of the English (rex Anglorum) (although this source - http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=charter&id=271 - translates it as 'King of England') in a charter from the year 823, although admittedly it's not the only occasion where King of the English/of England is claimed by powerful Anglo-Saxon kings (cf. most charters by Offa of Mercia).

Deaþe gecweald 11:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Statements needing sources

These are notes to myself, unless someone else can find refs for this. I should be able to deal with these later in May, when I have some additional refs to hand. Mike Christie (talk) 22:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"Egbert ravaged the whole of the territories of the West Welsh, which probably at this time did not include much more than Cornwall; it is probably from his reign that Cornwall can be considered subject to Wessex." This is not in the ASC and I can't find it referenced anywhere else. Mike Christie (talk) 22:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Kirby says that Aethelwulf was established as a king of the southeastern provinces. The two charters he cites, S 280 and S 286, don't seem to mention anything but Kent, so I'd like to get some other reference for Surrey and Sussex. Mike Christie (talk) 00:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I took out "The East Anglians acknowledged Egbert as overlord," referring to the aftermath of Ellendun. This may only have referred to the East Angles request for protection, which is already covered; if it's more than that it needs a source. Mike Christie (talk) 20:03, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Bones

I took out the paragraph on Egbert's burial and bones. I'd contacted another editor, qp10qp, to see if they had a source for this; I'd been told by the editor who added it, Avram Fawcett, that they got it from Hilliam's Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards. Here's qp10qp's response:

First the good news: I found the book, and the ref is: David Hilliam, Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards: Who's Who in the English Monarchy from Egbert to Elizabeth II, Sutton, pp. 114 (photos with caption), 180–183. ISBN 0750935537. The bad news is that, in my opinion, it's not the sort of book a good Misplaced Pages article should be referencing—utterly unacademic and credulous. The strand of Misplaced Pages policy I'd use to reject it would be the advice to use the "best sources" (verifiability by a published source being only a threshold). I found a small few other references to this, mostly in similarly "not best" sources". The closest I could come to a ref from a relatively usable source was in the Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy, by John Cannon and Ralph A. Griffiths, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 656, ISBN 0192893289: "The bones of all these monarchs were placed in mortuary chests in 1525 and are still in the choir. Four of the six chests were destroyed in the Civil War and the bones scattered around the Cathedral. These were replaced in new chests in 1661" (they say nothing more specific: Ecgbert is not named, but I assume he is one of the monarchs). Some nineteenth-century books on Google Books (for example, this one) give details about the contents of the chests, but the absence of this information from modern books is cause for grave suspicion. One is anyway addressing a series of unlikelihoods, the first being that the bones are those of the Anglo-Saxon kings at all, given the great passage of time. The fact that the bones are incomplete, muddled, and unidentifiable may owe as much to damage and loss before being disinterred as to any Civil War soldiers. They had also been re-chested and labelled in 1525: how likely are those 1525 labels to be correct? Another layer of difficulty arises from the bias of Restoration accounts of the Civil War. One also wonders what happened to the bones between being scattered (if indeed they had been) and being reburied in 1661 after the Restoration. Nevertheless, there is certainly material to be found that can go in the article: an Ecgbert chest with an inscription undoubtedly exists, and that's worth a mention in itself, of course, without any need to presume its genuineness. My suggestion would be to stick as closely as you can to how the best Anglo-Saxon historians comment on Ecgbert's death and burial. They know the game far better than the authors of illustrated histories for the general public; what they leave out, we should leave out, I believe.qp10qp 13:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree and have cut it till a reference can be found. It sounds like a reference can and should be found for the existence of a chest labelled with Egbert's name in the cathedral; I haven't found one yet but will add something on that when I do. Mike Christie (talk) 10:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

There are photos of it at unusable sites online, but nothing on Commons, unfortunately. I'll try and take a shot of it next time I'm up that way, though it appears to be positioned rather high up. It looks about as Anglo-Saxon as my nan's tea caddy.qp10qp 12:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Cornish place names

On this, I really don't think Yorke knows what she is talking about ("western Cornwall is the only area in which British place-names are now predominant"). I castigated Stenton for not getting out more, and now I must urge Barbara to visit Cornwall, or at least look at an Ordnance Survey map. Glancing at the Tintagel area on mine (not that I had to), it is clear that the vast majority of names are still Cornish: Tintagel, Halgabron, Trethevy, Treven, Tregatta, Trebarwith, Treknow, Trewarmett, Trenale, etc. Boscastle is Saxon; not sure about Bossiney. I would add that there are many more Cornish names, not on any maps, known to the locals. The density of Cornish names today is quite striking. I can't really suggest my OS map as a reference; so how about:

"As an even cursory glance at an Ordnance Survey map will show, to the south of the Ottery the names are overwhelmingly Celtic and typical of Cornwall—Trevillion, Tremaine, Hendra, and so on—while to the north they are English or hybrid Celtic-English and reminiscent of those found in adjoining North Devon." Philip Payton, Cornwall: A History, Cornwall Editions, 2004, 68. ISBN 1904880002.

The place names are fascinating, and they tell a story which we cannot interpret. The sharp dividing line means something, but we don't know what. The almost totally Saxon nature of the northern tip of Cornwall (even today people come south from that area for a "proper Cornish evening") implies to me that it was settled by the Saxons whereas the rest of Cornwall was merely administered by them. There is an equivalent oddity over the water in southwest Wales, where Little England Beyond Wales is entirely Saxon and impervious to Welsh-language culture even to this day. That phenomenon tends to be dated post-conquest, but I wouldn't be surprised if Anglo-Saxons had settled there. qp10qp 16:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Raedburgh

I have cut the paragraph about Redburga. Here's a comment from qp10qp on my talk page about it.

As far as I can make out, the origins of this information are very obscure, stemming back to a medieval manuscript at Trinity College, quoted by W. G. Searle in Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings, and Nobles, London, 1899, p 343, as "MS Trin Coll 0xf x". There is no Anglo-Saxon source for Egbert's wife, as far as I can see, and I don't know the date of Searle's manuscript (post-conquest, I guess). Apparently, she is described in the document as regis Francorum sororia—no mention of Charlemagne (could just as well be his successor, Louis). Sororia seems to mean "sister-in-law", in which case, she would not be the sister of the king (regis) but of the king's wife. Once again, I suggest sticking to the material you can find in the best Anglo-Saxon history books, because this stuff is obscure and iffy, to say the least; I would copy the respected historians' way of mentioning this queen, if they mention her.qp10qp 14:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree and have cut it. I can't find any current historian who mentions this. Mike Christie (talk) 03:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Neither can I, and you'd suppose that someone would. The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England doesn't mention any wife of Ecgberht's, nor name the mother of his sons, and has no entry for any Rædburh. In particular, there's no sign of her in Story's Carolingian Connections (at least as viewable on Google books) where she would surely be mentioned if there was any credence at all given to the story. Which leaves the question: what to do with Redburga? Angus McLellan (Talk) 08:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

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