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Excellent stuff, Llywrch. I would probably have got round to it eventually but life is short and I am spread very thin... user:sjc
"Cuneglasus of "the Bear's Stronghold" (Din Eirth, possibly Dinarth near Llandudno)" - unlikely to be Dinarth I would have thought, since Maelgwn's main stronghold at Deganwy would have been only a couple of miles away. Apart from Maelgwn, I don't think anything further is known of the other kings denounced by Gildas Rhion 20:54, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure where the problem lies -- in the Wikipedia software or my browser -- but when a link is indicated next to a square braket like this [[Aetius]]], the text of the actual link is swallowed, & all I see is this Aetius]. To fix that problem, I have added a space where this problem occurs to fix this.
Or am I the only person to see that phenomena? -- llywrch 21:43, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
That's actually a picture of Abelard and Heloise. Abelard was abbot of St. Gildas de Rhuys MaryJones 23:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I removed the following passage:
It seemed a little strange to me. Obviously, huge sections of the Roman Empire were not Latin speaking, or spoke Latin only as a second language. The large numbers of early Latin loanwords in Welsh are adequate evidence of a Roman presence. The question "why didn't Latin replace British as the colloquial tongue of (lowland) Britain" is not in any way "awkward", nor mysterious, nor indeed in need of much explanation -- Britain was a distant frontier province, separated by the sea, and not as desirable for colonization by Romans from Italy as were Gaul, Spain, and (parts of) North Africa. If anything, it's the lack of survival of Gallic and the pre-Roman Iberian languages that is "awkward" -- Albanian, spoken much closer to Italy, survived quite nicely.
Anyway, it's not clear how Gildas' account relates to the linguistic situation -- there's no evidence that Latin was a vernacular language spoken by a majority of Britons under Roman rule even before the arrival of the Saxons, and subsequent events would have affected Latin and British speakers equally. RandomCritic ( talk) 14:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I re-wrote the first sentence to avoid using the expression 'Celtic Church'. For one thing, Gildas would have thought of himself as a Roman Christian, just as St. Patrick did, equating Christianity with 'Romanitas'. For another, he would have been totally unfamiliar with the word 'Celtic', also with the idea that the Church in his part of the world was a separate entity from the church on the other side of the Channel. Nennius ( talk) 08:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)Nennius
What are the original sources for the two years of birth? The 1911 Britannica only states 516. Kaldari ( talk) 19:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Mention of the Apocalyptic beasts should be in the Gildas article ... else we have part I (religious theme), part II (tirade), part III (religious theme). All 3 parts are consistently religious when the Apocalypse is included. Ultimately, when the first and third parts are expanded, De Excidio should probably have its own article.
Not sure why there is a tradition of editing Gildas to refer to Dumnonia rather than Damnonia ... Gildas ties all of the kings together through Maelgwn, and that is historically accurate and credible regarding Damnonia. It makes no sense regarding Dumnonia, which was not under Maelgwn's pre-eminence, and had no known relationship of this kind with either Maelgwn or his kingdom.
Comments welcome. Regards, Notuncurious ( talk) 22:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Clay, Rotha Mary., (1914).
"The Hermits and Anchorites of England" (PDF). Methuen & Co. London. p. 9. Retrieved 23 January 2010.{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (
link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) Gildas left
Steep Holm to become
Abbot of Glastonbury. Is this strong enough evidence to include in the article?—
Rod
talk 19:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
From his brother's names, his father was presumably named Caw. Anything else known about him?
His brother 'Maelog'/'Mailoc' was apparently also revered as a saint, with his feast on the following day, 30 January, per this guy. — LlywelynII 22:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I should like to begin by commending those who have worked so hard to summarize the surviving vitae related to Gildas. This is very useful information. There are, however, a number of problems with the entry in its current form which I hope to address in the coming weeks. Most significantly, the vitae (all of which were composed well after Gildas's floruit) are treated as factual sources for his career when, in reality, nothing of the sort can be assumed. We are thus dependent upon the information that can be reasonably reconstructed from the evidence preserved within the texts that may be securely attributed to him—chiefly the De Excidio Britanniae. To address this, I propose to edit the biographical section to reflect current scholarly concensus.
Further, I believe that it is necessary to clearly differentiate between fact and medieval tradition in the layout of the page. Thus, I envisage an organizational structure that privileges his biographical information and brief remarks concerning the De Exicidio over the later vitae and Arthurian traditions.
Moreover, I would like to expand the further reading section to include more than Dr Larpi's current monograph. There's a significant body of scholarship relating to Gildas that ought to be referenced. Many of the out-of-date references ought to be excised and links to pages of questionable scholarly value should be pruned. Both are frequently misleading or draw upon dubious material.
Medievalbrian ( talk) 15:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone, for your responses! I think that we should be able to soon whip this page into shape. Unfortunately for us, Gildas is notoriously difficult in terms of concrete evidence since we've no contemporary evidence for his life beyond what we can tease out of the text of the DEB. Nevertheless, there's some good material out there that can get us started. Here's an initial list of secondary sources:
You'll notice that much refers back to the individual essays found in Gildas: New Approaches since they remain at the head of most scholarly work on Gildas in the last fifty years. In your research, keep an eye open for works by Dumville, Herren, Lapidge, Thompson, and Wright. Paul Grosjean needs to be used with extreme care since he was a supporter of Arthur Wade-Evans who argued that the DEB was a forgery.
Editions of the primary text:
I'll add to this list when I'm in my office this week and have access to my collection. Medievalbrian ( talk) 13:44, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
What is the best way to set about revising this? I'm a complete tiro when it comes to editing things on Wikipedia, but can we use someone's sandbox as a place to put things together before introducing it to the world? Is there a better way to set about the task?
While I'm at it here are a few more useful references (which deal chiefly with Gildas's ecclesiastical career and issues of authorship concerning the Fragmenta and the Praefatio de poenitentia, though Herren does make an argument about dating in his piece):
Medievalbrian ( talk) 15:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
The first volume of the Oxford History of Wales, T. M. Charles-Edwards's Wales and the Britons 350-1064, has over a column in the index on Gildas, though it is a while since I read it and I cannot remember what he said. Dudley Miles ( talk) 16:33, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
I've changed the pipelink from "Brythonic" back to "British" in the lead. "Brythonic" is not an ethnic category, it's a linguistic one, and is inappropriate here, partly because linguists seem to prefer "Brittonic" these days, partly because the only language Gildas is known to have used is Latin, but mainly because it's uninformative. It's specialist jargon, which the general reader will have to look up. "British" at least tells you where he came from geographically, which is far more relevant in the introduction than which group of languages the language he presumably spoke belonged to. -- Nicknack009 ( talk) 06:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
In the text we have "but both agree that he was born in what is now Scotland, on the banks of the River Clyde" while in the box we have "Born c. 500 traditionally the valley of the river Clwyd in north Wales." Please could an expert resolve this. Brownturkey ( talk) 07:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
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Excellent stuff, Llywrch. I would probably have got round to it eventually but life is short and I am spread very thin... user:sjc
"Cuneglasus of "the Bear's Stronghold" (Din Eirth, possibly Dinarth near Llandudno)" - unlikely to be Dinarth I would have thought, since Maelgwn's main stronghold at Deganwy would have been only a couple of miles away. Apart from Maelgwn, I don't think anything further is known of the other kings denounced by Gildas Rhion 20:54, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure where the problem lies -- in the Wikipedia software or my browser -- but when a link is indicated next to a square braket like this [[Aetius]]], the text of the actual link is swallowed, & all I see is this Aetius]. To fix that problem, I have added a space where this problem occurs to fix this.
Or am I the only person to see that phenomena? -- llywrch 21:43, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
That's actually a picture of Abelard and Heloise. Abelard was abbot of St. Gildas de Rhuys MaryJones 23:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I removed the following passage:
It seemed a little strange to me. Obviously, huge sections of the Roman Empire were not Latin speaking, or spoke Latin only as a second language. The large numbers of early Latin loanwords in Welsh are adequate evidence of a Roman presence. The question "why didn't Latin replace British as the colloquial tongue of (lowland) Britain" is not in any way "awkward", nor mysterious, nor indeed in need of much explanation -- Britain was a distant frontier province, separated by the sea, and not as desirable for colonization by Romans from Italy as were Gaul, Spain, and (parts of) North Africa. If anything, it's the lack of survival of Gallic and the pre-Roman Iberian languages that is "awkward" -- Albanian, spoken much closer to Italy, survived quite nicely.
Anyway, it's not clear how Gildas' account relates to the linguistic situation -- there's no evidence that Latin was a vernacular language spoken by a majority of Britons under Roman rule even before the arrival of the Saxons, and subsequent events would have affected Latin and British speakers equally. RandomCritic ( talk) 14:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I re-wrote the first sentence to avoid using the expression 'Celtic Church'. For one thing, Gildas would have thought of himself as a Roman Christian, just as St. Patrick did, equating Christianity with 'Romanitas'. For another, he would have been totally unfamiliar with the word 'Celtic', also with the idea that the Church in his part of the world was a separate entity from the church on the other side of the Channel. Nennius ( talk) 08:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)Nennius
What are the original sources for the two years of birth? The 1911 Britannica only states 516. Kaldari ( talk) 19:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Mention of the Apocalyptic beasts should be in the Gildas article ... else we have part I (religious theme), part II (tirade), part III (religious theme). All 3 parts are consistently religious when the Apocalypse is included. Ultimately, when the first and third parts are expanded, De Excidio should probably have its own article.
Not sure why there is a tradition of editing Gildas to refer to Dumnonia rather than Damnonia ... Gildas ties all of the kings together through Maelgwn, and that is historically accurate and credible regarding Damnonia. It makes no sense regarding Dumnonia, which was not under Maelgwn's pre-eminence, and had no known relationship of this kind with either Maelgwn or his kingdom.
Comments welcome. Regards, Notuncurious ( talk) 22:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Clay, Rotha Mary., (1914).
"The Hermits and Anchorites of England" (PDF). Methuen & Co. London. p. 9. Retrieved 23 January 2010.{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (
link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) Gildas left
Steep Holm to become
Abbot of Glastonbury. Is this strong enough evidence to include in the article?—
Rod
talk 19:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
From his brother's names, his father was presumably named Caw. Anything else known about him?
His brother 'Maelog'/'Mailoc' was apparently also revered as a saint, with his feast on the following day, 30 January, per this guy. — LlywelynII 22:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I should like to begin by commending those who have worked so hard to summarize the surviving vitae related to Gildas. This is very useful information. There are, however, a number of problems with the entry in its current form which I hope to address in the coming weeks. Most significantly, the vitae (all of which were composed well after Gildas's floruit) are treated as factual sources for his career when, in reality, nothing of the sort can be assumed. We are thus dependent upon the information that can be reasonably reconstructed from the evidence preserved within the texts that may be securely attributed to him—chiefly the De Excidio Britanniae. To address this, I propose to edit the biographical section to reflect current scholarly concensus.
Further, I believe that it is necessary to clearly differentiate between fact and medieval tradition in the layout of the page. Thus, I envisage an organizational structure that privileges his biographical information and brief remarks concerning the De Exicidio over the later vitae and Arthurian traditions.
Moreover, I would like to expand the further reading section to include more than Dr Larpi's current monograph. There's a significant body of scholarship relating to Gildas that ought to be referenced. Many of the out-of-date references ought to be excised and links to pages of questionable scholarly value should be pruned. Both are frequently misleading or draw upon dubious material.
Medievalbrian ( talk) 15:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone, for your responses! I think that we should be able to soon whip this page into shape. Unfortunately for us, Gildas is notoriously difficult in terms of concrete evidence since we've no contemporary evidence for his life beyond what we can tease out of the text of the DEB. Nevertheless, there's some good material out there that can get us started. Here's an initial list of secondary sources:
You'll notice that much refers back to the individual essays found in Gildas: New Approaches since they remain at the head of most scholarly work on Gildas in the last fifty years. In your research, keep an eye open for works by Dumville, Herren, Lapidge, Thompson, and Wright. Paul Grosjean needs to be used with extreme care since he was a supporter of Arthur Wade-Evans who argued that the DEB was a forgery.
Editions of the primary text:
I'll add to this list when I'm in my office this week and have access to my collection. Medievalbrian ( talk) 13:44, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
What is the best way to set about revising this? I'm a complete tiro when it comes to editing things on Wikipedia, but can we use someone's sandbox as a place to put things together before introducing it to the world? Is there a better way to set about the task?
While I'm at it here are a few more useful references (which deal chiefly with Gildas's ecclesiastical career and issues of authorship concerning the Fragmenta and the Praefatio de poenitentia, though Herren does make an argument about dating in his piece):
Medievalbrian ( talk) 15:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
The first volume of the Oxford History of Wales, T. M. Charles-Edwards's Wales and the Britons 350-1064, has over a column in the index on Gildas, though it is a while since I read it and I cannot remember what he said. Dudley Miles ( talk) 16:33, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
I've changed the pipelink from "Brythonic" back to "British" in the lead. "Brythonic" is not an ethnic category, it's a linguistic one, and is inappropriate here, partly because linguists seem to prefer "Brittonic" these days, partly because the only language Gildas is known to have used is Latin, but mainly because it's uninformative. It's specialist jargon, which the general reader will have to look up. "British" at least tells you where he came from geographically, which is far more relevant in the introduction than which group of languages the language he presumably spoke belonged to. -- Nicknack009 ( talk) 06:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
In the text we have "but both agree that he was born in what is now Scotland, on the banks of the River Clyde" while in the box we have "Born c. 500 traditionally the valley of the river Clwyd in north Wales." Please could an expert resolve this. Brownturkey ( talk) 07:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)