I suggest that OE letters be changed to modern equivalents in this template. I think "Æ" and "æ" can be preserved, since they are still in use in modern English orthography, but "þ" has not been in use for centuries. I also suggest that the accents on the names be removed -- this may be correct OE usage, but the common use in secondary sources now does not include them.
The relevant guideline, Naming conventions, makes it clear there's debate on similar issues, so I thought I'd post here before making any changes. If I hear no objections I'll make the edits in a few days. Mike Christie (talk) 10:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I changed "earldormen" to "ealdormen" just to get the spelling right, but I don't think it's the right change in the first place -- I would be surprised if the Lady of the Mercians was ever called an ealdorman. I don't know if deputy is correct either, but if we're going to include the rules from the second Ceolwulf onwards (which we don't have to do) then it's probably better than ealdorman. I don't think these Ceolwulf or Aethelred were ever called "King", were they? How about just leaving them off the template? Mike Christie (talk) 11:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
TharkunColl just changed Egbert to Ecgberht; this came up above and I still think Egbert would be better -- it's almost universal in modern secondary sources. Any objections to changing it back? Mike Christie (talk) 13:11, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
Here's what the sources I have use. For sources that predate the Egbert/Ecgberht in question (or discuss other Egberts) I've looked at how they spell others of the same name, and marked those sources by underlining them.
I think it's worth noting that in some cases Egbert of Wessex is spelled "Egbert", but other Egberts are spelled "Ecgberht". (Those cases are included under "Egbert" above; I pointed a couple of them out in the list.) Perhaps the fact that this Egbert is better known than any of the others means that the "Egbert" spelling has become established in the minds of some writers, rather as Alfred is never spelled "Ælfred"?
This suggests to me that Colgrave's Life of Saint Guthlac and Higham's An English Empire should be discarded from the list above, since spelling other people "Ecgberht" does not imply they would have spelled the king of Wessex that way; and in Colgrave's case another of his works uses "Egbert". The writers of works that only mention other Egberts (spelled that way) are, however, unlikely to have spelled the king of Wessex as "Ecgberht" -- when there's an inconsistency it's always the king of Wessex who is Egbert. So I would suggest this is a fairly strong bias in the secondary sources in favour of "Egbert", and I think that's the spelling we should use.
Having said that, there are three very reliable sources going with "Ecgberht": PASE, the Blackwell, and Kirby. So if everyone still thinks, after seeing the list above, that "Ecgberht" is better, I can live with that. I would suggest that in that case we drop "Egbert" completely, and we should also move Egbert of Wessex to Ecgberht of Wessex; it's silly to have the template say one thing but the article say another. Mike Christie (talk) 00:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not English, and I'm not familiar with this area of English history or language, but my feeling as a reader is that if it's close to a draw - and from the discussion this seems to be pretty close - the version that is likely to be more familiar to the casual reader should be used, in this case Egbert. Scolaire ( talk) 13:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I suggest that OE letters be changed to modern equivalents in this template. I think "Æ" and "æ" can be preserved, since they are still in use in modern English orthography, but "þ" has not been in use for centuries. I also suggest that the accents on the names be removed -- this may be correct OE usage, but the common use in secondary sources now does not include them.
The relevant guideline, Naming conventions, makes it clear there's debate on similar issues, so I thought I'd post here before making any changes. If I hear no objections I'll make the edits in a few days. Mike Christie (talk) 10:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I changed "earldormen" to "ealdormen" just to get the spelling right, but I don't think it's the right change in the first place -- I would be surprised if the Lady of the Mercians was ever called an ealdorman. I don't know if deputy is correct either, but if we're going to include the rules from the second Ceolwulf onwards (which we don't have to do) then it's probably better than ealdorman. I don't think these Ceolwulf or Aethelred were ever called "King", were they? How about just leaving them off the template? Mike Christie (talk) 11:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
TharkunColl just changed Egbert to Ecgberht; this came up above and I still think Egbert would be better -- it's almost universal in modern secondary sources. Any objections to changing it back? Mike Christie (talk) 13:11, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
Here's what the sources I have use. For sources that predate the Egbert/Ecgberht in question (or discuss other Egberts) I've looked at how they spell others of the same name, and marked those sources by underlining them.
I think it's worth noting that in some cases Egbert of Wessex is spelled "Egbert", but other Egberts are spelled "Ecgberht". (Those cases are included under "Egbert" above; I pointed a couple of them out in the list.) Perhaps the fact that this Egbert is better known than any of the others means that the "Egbert" spelling has become established in the minds of some writers, rather as Alfred is never spelled "Ælfred"?
This suggests to me that Colgrave's Life of Saint Guthlac and Higham's An English Empire should be discarded from the list above, since spelling other people "Ecgberht" does not imply they would have spelled the king of Wessex that way; and in Colgrave's case another of his works uses "Egbert". The writers of works that only mention other Egberts (spelled that way) are, however, unlikely to have spelled the king of Wessex as "Ecgberht" -- when there's an inconsistency it's always the king of Wessex who is Egbert. So I would suggest this is a fairly strong bias in the secondary sources in favour of "Egbert", and I think that's the spelling we should use.
Having said that, there are three very reliable sources going with "Ecgberht": PASE, the Blackwell, and Kirby. So if everyone still thinks, after seeing the list above, that "Ecgberht" is better, I can live with that. I would suggest that in that case we drop "Egbert" completely, and we should also move Egbert of Wessex to Ecgberht of Wessex; it's silly to have the template say one thing but the article say another. Mike Christie (talk) 00:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not English, and I'm not familiar with this area of English history or language, but my feeling as a reader is that if it's close to a draw - and from the discussion this seems to be pretty close - the version that is likely to be more familiar to the casual reader should be used, in this case Egbert. Scolaire ( talk) 13:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)