Talk:England in the Late Middle Ages

Change from redirect

This article has been changed from a redirect to England in the Middle Ages, to a substantive article as a result of reviews and discussion at House of Plantagenet. As a result it uses text originally from that article and England in the Middle Ages.--SabreBD (talk) 18:23, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

End of the period

Should we more equivocal about this? 1485 is of course a convenient dynastic marker, but many would think the medieval period in England went on until some point in the early 16th century. The V&As big exhibition on English late medieval art was called "Gothic; Art for England 1400-1547", though that is perhaps unusually late. Johnbod (talk) 10:53, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

The date has migrated. It used to be in the Renaissance which is largely 15thC in England, but now the Reformation is more often seen as the turning point. I will see if I can find something reliable to that effect. However, that does mean it may be out of sinc with the other English medieval articles.--SabreBD (talk) 17:48, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Good luck with that one Sabrebd! The end of this period is a largely arbitrary definition. A quick trawl round Wikipedia indicates that 1485 is largely accepted but that is Wikipedia and may just be down to the way a lot of the content originated from out of copyright versions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That said both the National Archives & Oxford English Dictionary take this date as the start of Early Modern England. The Faculty of History at Cambridge unhelpfully uses c1450 which would exclude the Wars of the Roses from this article. In a European sense both the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and discovery of America in 1492 are used. 1492 is coincidently used in Spain marking the conquest of Granada. Weisinger in "Studies in the Renaissance" said "Ever since the Renaissance invented itself some six hundred years ago there has been no agreement as to what it is" and Thomas in "Religion and the Decline of Magic" indicated the medieval belief systems coexisted with the new world for a further century or more. I am sure the the V&A are correct in labelling their Gothic exhibition in an artistice sense but England was later than our European cousins in coming to the ball (perhaps distracted by all that fighting) but selecting the death of Henry VIII as a marker seems even more arbitrary.Norfolkbigfish (talk) 10:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

All true. I think the solution may be to point to some of the different dates, rather than necessarily try to radically change the scope of the article. It is probably worth stressing that it is not a clear break, where everyone woke up the day after Bosworth in the Renaissance.--SabreBD (talk) 11:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, at the moment we just say "...through to the start of the accession of the Tudors and the early modern period in 1485", which gives another problem, as don't many historians interpose the Renaissance between MA & EM? They do round my way. We need to at least indicate there is no one fixed date. Middle Ages has a section on this, & with its talk has various sources, and one might work in a link to Periodization. Johnbod (talk) 11:19, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Or alternatively that sentence could be rearranged slightly......... "...through to the start of the accession of the Tudors in 1485 and the beginning of the early modern period "? Norfolkbigfish (talk) 14:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I went for "...through to the accession to the throne of the Tudor dynasty in 1485, which is often taken as the most convenient marker for the end of the Middle Ages and the start of Early modern Britain." - as a holding measure, removing a bit from a lower para saying much the same. Johnbod (talk) 15:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I think that looks good for now.--SabreBD (talk) 16:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

English as the official language

This was a change neatly fitted into this period, and needs amplification - probably in the "national identity" section. There is a bit (a tad misleading) in the Literature section, but it needs coverage higher up. Johnbod (talk) 11:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I will have a look for that too.--SabreBD (talk) 18:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Unofficial languages

Other languages were spoken in England in this period. For instance, Welsh was spoken in areas of Herefordshire and Shropshire, and Cornish in Cornwall. This should be mentioned somewhere. Jim Killock (talk) 07:27, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Content removal

@Dbachmann: Could you please explain why you made this edit? You removed a lot of content with no edit summary. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think this edit can be justified and it is probably best to revert it. To reduce the significant factors to just the itermittant 100-years war and the War of the Roses ignores many significant events (Black Death, decline of feudalism, greta famine, Bannockburn etc etc) Norfolkbigfish (talk) 12:44, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Taking all the edits this morning (incuding some tidying) [1], I think it is clear what he was up to. But, at the least, he has not adjusted for the links he has removed (Edward II, Gascony), & having been too long, many paras are now too short. I think some compromise version should be found - there was too much detail in the lead. Johnbod (talk) 12:52, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, but now we have too little detail in the lead and too many paragraphs.--SabreBD (talk) 15:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't look like we are going to get a detailed rationale at the moment, so I have put back a shorter version of the lead that the restores the four paragraphs recommend by the MOS, puts back the definition in the first sentence, but skips some of the detail.--SabreBD (talk) 17:18, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 5 October 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure) PadFoot (talk) 07:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

---

• England in the Late Middle Ages → England in the late Middle Ages
• Wales in the Late Middle Ages → Wales in the late Middle Ages
• Scotland in the Late Middle Ages → Scotland in the late Middle Ages
• Wales in the Early Middle Ages → Wales in the early Middle Ages
• Scotland in the Early Middle Ages → Scotland in the early Middle Ages
• Poland in the Early Middle Ages → Poland in the early Middle Ages
• Netherlands in the Early Middle Ages → Netherlands in the early Middle Ages
• Framing the Early Middle Ages → Framing the early Middle AgesAs noted below, titles of works use title case. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:29, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Romania in the Early Middle Ages → Romania in the early Middle Ages
• Spanish illumination of the Early Middle Ages → Spanish illumination of the early Middle Ages

– Move to sentence case per WP:AT (see also WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS). The terms early and late when qualifying Middle Ages are not consistently capped in sources as shown in ngrams here and here. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. FOARP (talk) 13:32, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment We must ensure that the spelling of "Early Middle Ages", "High Middle Ages" and "Late Middle Ages" is actually consistent throughout Wikipedia, not only in article titles. If we don't cap "early" and "late", capping "High" would be jarring. Besides, moving article titles to lower-case "early" and "late" while having article texts consistently use (or at least prefer) upper-case "Early" and "Late" is jarring as well and looks unprofessional, sloppy and confused. This should be a more general decision about the spelling of these terms on Wikipedia. I don't care how, just make Wikipedia be freaking consistent about it, not the bloody mess we have now. (A rough analogue is "late antiquity", where the fully lower-case variant has now become standard on Wikipedia. However, while the article title "Late antiquity" (with case-insensitive, automatically upper-case first letter) already indicates that the spelling "Late Antiquity" is not intended and not the standard on Wikipedia, the article titles "Early Middle Ages", "High Middle Ages" and "Late Middle Ages" do not indicate any particular case, a widespread annoyance I've encountered.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  If early and late should not be capped, then by this argument, we should not cap high either, since it represents the exception rather than the norm. To consistency within articles, there is WP:NODEADLINE, though it is nice to have consistency within and across articles. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:33, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Florian, it's typical to work these things out in RM discussions, since they get formally closed; when titles are made right, it's easier to propagate the fix across articles. That's mostly what I do these days. And don't be annoyed that capitalization of the first word doesn't indicate anything but a start; that's just a fact of sentence case in English. Dicklyon (talk) 03:10, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  But it is absolutely bloody annoying because (this occurs even more often in German, where adjectives are generally not capped, but they are in certain fixed expressions such as (die) Chinesische Mauer, just like Great is capped along with Wall in Great Wall of China, but it's often hard to predict which ones exactly, just like in Early/Late Middle Ages) you can't derive the intended capitalisation from the article title, nor from sentences that start with the expression, so you need to scan through the article for diagnostic occurrences and hope the spelling is consistent in it. (On en-WP, Great Britain is an example for when capitalisation is not evident from the article title, contrast uncapped Great white shark.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Comment Framing the Early Middle Ages is an article about a book so should use title case rather than sentence case (MOS:TITLECAPS) and be excluded from this discussion. Richard Nevell (talk) 00:41, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom, but I had to correct one of his "here and here" links to see both early and late. Dicklyon (talk) 03:10, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages are both terms for periods of history. They should be fully capitalised or not at all, as in late middle ages. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:42, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: There are also Early Middle Ages in Azerbaijan and High Middle Ages in Azerbaijan. Could applying that word order across the board be a way of avoiding this issue? Admittedly, it wouldn't work for the Spanish illuminated manuscripts. There are also Early medieval European dress, Early medieval literature and Early medieval states in Kazakhstan. Significantly, two of those three are for aspects of culture, and Early medieval Spanish illumination or Early medieval Spanish illuminated manuscripts could work. (I think I prefer the latter option.) Early medieval [country's name] would not, I think, work for the Netherlands. Ham II (talk) 17:30, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  In principle this workaround should work, but replacing "E/early Middle Ages" with "early medieval period" is a somewhat clunky alternative, so it's only a great solution where "early medieval" suffices. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  I could have been a little clearer; I was suggesting putting "Early [or Late] Middle Ages" at the beginning of the titles as a workaround for all articles but one, then having Early medieval Spanish illuminated manuscripts as the only article in this nomination with "early medieval" in the title. Beginning article titles with "Early", "High" or "Late" wouldn't resolve the issue of how to capitalise those words (when modifying "Middle Ages") in the article body, of course. Ham II (talk) 07:44, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  FWIW, I've never seen "early medieval", "high medieval" or "late medieval" capped, at least when "medieval" is uncapped ("Early Medieval Latin" is a different case, of course). Maybe the capping of "Middle Ages" transfers to the adjective? It looks like "Early Middle Ages" is widely viewed as a fixed phrase or proper name, but the adjective "early medieval" is perceived or treated differently. English spelling is not very logical, that much is true. (I just noticed that Wiktionary has only capped Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages and does not even mention the uncapped variants, reinforcing the view that these are treated as fixed phrases.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:30, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose: Per Dudley's arguments above. I find the ngrams unconvincing - not every usage refers to the period. FB's "standard on Wikipedia" means little - it is only "standard" because Dicklyon and a few others have ludgeon those changes. Johnbod (talk) 22:22, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  John, can you give an example or two or where "late Middle Ages" is used to mean something different from "the period" "Late Middle Ages"? Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Johnbod: One way to look for and/or exclude other meanings is to add more context in the n-gram stats. Here, for example, prepending "the" and looking at what comes before, you might remove more title-case uses and get a better idea how the capped vs lowercase uses are being used. Let us know if you think any of these might be what you were referring to as maybe not referring to "the period". I would think that "in the ..." and "of the ..." and "from the ..." and "during the ..." would be pretty clearly about the period, and they show even stronger tendency to lowercase "late", yes? Dicklyon (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support. We appear to be tolerating the capitalization of a handful of era terms, including "Middle Ages" and "Renaissance", only because they remain rather consistently capitalized in independent RS. But this does not translate into a capitalization of more era terms or modifiers tacked onto them; capitalization in source material declines markedly for such terms.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:03, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support—It's like "the late 20th century": no cap. Tony (talk) 06:23, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  That is an argument for no capitalisation, as late middle ages, which some reliable source use. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  Of the sources that use lowercase "late", fewer than 10% use lowercase "middle ages", since about 2000. So maybe Tony didn't pick the most apt analogy, but if you go with capitalization only when "consistently capitalized in sources" interpreted as a threshold anywhere between 50% and 90%, then the answer is clear. Dicklyon (talk) 15:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose I thought I'd look at a few relevant style guides to see what they say. The results are not conclusive, but...

• Medieval Archaeology's instructions for authors goes with all caps, eg: Early Middle Ages (but compare with early medieval).
• I don't have full access to the Chicago Manual of Style but it suggests High Middle Ages, early Middle Ages, and the late Middle Ages which is distressingly inconsistent. That just seems chaotic to me. The CMoS is used by The Medieval History Journal.
• Speculum's style sheet doesn't address the issue which is mildly surprising, beyond stipulating that Middle Ages should be capitalised.
• Early Medieval Europe is similar but I think would prefer having the qualifier in lower case, ie: early Middle Ages (it's not explicit).
• The Journal of Medieval History doesn't address the issue at all, at least in what I can find online.
• Brepols, which publishes a bunch of medieval stuff including Peritia, recommends (see section [7.4]) lower case for the modifier, so early Middle Ages.

I've now spent more time navigating author guidance documents than is reasonable for a Monday evening. There may be other relevant publications with guidance, but I'll leave it to others to explore if they want to. On balance it's a bit of a hodge podge, but I lean towards retaining capitalisation (maybe that's because I'm most familiar with Medieval Archaeology).

I don't like the CMoS approach as it seems messy; I'd prefer an approach that is consistent. I can't say I'm especially fussed as to which approach we land on, but if we end up with the titles all lower case, does that mean the Middle Ages article would need to be moved? I wouldn't endorse that particular change. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Support. — Jɑuмe ^(dis-me) 00:30, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Name of period. Borsoka (talk) 01:38, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose specifically the jarringly inconsistent scheme early/High/late. Either we cap all or none. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support—early, late and high for that matter are clearly adjectives. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 08:09, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• So is middle. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:15, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Dudley Miles, "Middle Ages" should not be interpreted literally; as such, it has already acquired a new meaning, so the capitalization is fully justified. And what about late Middle Ages? For me, late and early only serve to categorize which specific period of the Middle Ages we are referring to. RodRabelo7 (talk) 23:12, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

• It has not acquired a new meaning. It is the period between the modern period and the ancient world, and some historians use all lower case, as in late middle ages. Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages are both the names of specific periods. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:17, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Dudley, Johnbod, Borsoka. My feeling is that "Early", "High", and "Late" (with a 1000–year spread) are distinct eras enough to be worthy of capitalisation and are how I mostly see them in sources (although admittedly, my reading is mostly in art history). Ham's solution of retitling the names so that the distinction is necessarily capitalised is good, but obvs doesn't account for the resulting warfare on the body text of individual articles. Ceoil (talk) 00:53, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I am seeing a number of editors expressing the view that "early", "late" and "high" should all be in the same case (capped or lowercase). The evidence clearly indicates that "early" and "late" should not be capped. It would therefore be difficult to justify capping them all when two out of three should clearly not be capped. "High" is approaching a level of capitalisation that could be considered sufficient to capitalise on WP - see here, here and here. However, when contexturalised, the usage of "High" (capped) has been at about 70% since 1990 and even lower in the period 1965 - 1990. A reasonable case could be made to lowercase "high", thereby resolving the matter. I would support lowercasing all of these. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:56, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dudley and the rest. The common use of 'Early, Middle, Late' applies here. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:05, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I personally tend to write "late Middle Ages", but I find the "oppose" arguments more compelling here, and in general I don't think we should be moving pages back and forth between various capitalization schemes unless we have really quite strong consensus for it. -- asilvering (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.