Talk:Council of Reims (1148)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 01:45, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Not a period I have studied, but it's a subject I have.

• Category:12th-century Roman Catholic Church Councils? Category:Roman Catholic Church Councils held in France?
  • I hate categories, I never get them right. Added. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
• Link to Canon law (Catholic Church) in the lead?
  • A canon of a council/synod at this time isn't quite the same as canon law, so I'm hesitant to link there for this, as it gives the wrong idea. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Do we have an article on what it does refer to? J Milburn (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Not really, and I'm not sure it'd pass AfD, honestly, it'd be a dictionary definition mostly. I do have it as "... canons, or rules, ..." in the article. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
        • Yep, that's fair enough. I'll trust your judgement on that, you obviously know more about it than me. J Milburn (talk) 01:10, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Surely, that would be large c Church when referring to "the church"? I've gone with it, but I'm sure some little wiki-gnome will come along and change it back at some point. Like categories, I never get this one right either. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) Perhaps mention where both Reims and Trier are in the lead? done. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) Rheims? Or Reims? If it was up to me, I'd use Rheims, as that's what it is usually referred to in the literature about the council, but I lost that page move discussion a while back. I have fixed all the Rheims' except for the one in the bibliography. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "attendees are considered to have attended" Redundancy Fixed. Made "attendees" into "ecclesiastics" Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "consistory"? Was linked in the body, but now linked in the lead Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) Do we know why Stephen stopped bishops attending? We have speculation, nothing more. And a lot of differing speculation ... so i've left that for Theo's article and Stephen's .. if I ever get to Stephen's. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "Reims in 1131 and at the Lateran council of 1139" Links? Don't be scared of redlinks. Linked. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

• Could the discussion of the proceedings be expanded a little? Do you mention all canons? As for the "dispute between two Norman abbots", what was it about, and what was the conclusion? Who were the people tasked with coming to the conclusion?
  • There literally is no further information in the secondary sources that I've found so far. Most of the canons of the actual council weren't novel or new, they were just restating older canons. I'm not aiming this at FA status, since I can't be sure there aren't some articles lurking in the non-English literature that I can't access. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
    • A note in the article that most of the proceedings were nothing new would be helpful. J Milburn (talk) 00:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Already there "Most of these were not new decrees, having been promulgated by Eugene's predecessor at the councils of Reims in 1131 and at the Lateran council of 1139." Ealdgyth - Talk 00:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
        • Right you are, sorry. J Milburn (talk) 01:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

"Other disputes, including ones between abbots were also handled at the council," Comma after "abbots"? Fixed. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "the Bishop of Dol and the Bishop of Brieux." Who? Which ones? What had they done? Not sure which bishop - source doesn't name them (and I can't even figure out who the "Bishop of Brieux" is, since we don't have an article but the source specifically says that bishopric) and again, the source doesn't say. It probably isn't known. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "excommunication" Linky? Fixed. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "the Bishop of Orleans and the Bishop of Troyes" Again, which ones? So, were they fired for not turning up? Presumably, yes, they were in trouble for not showing up, but it's not clear. And the source doesn't say which bishop, and I can't quite be sure which one was meant from our articles on the bishoprics. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) What was Gilbert accused of teaching? (I see it's further down- move it up?) reorganized a bit. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "trial likely took place on 2–3 April 1148, as the trial" repetition Fixed. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC) "considerable confusion in the future." Examples? Not given. There really is only one treatment of this subject that discusses the council in any detail. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

• I get the impression the article could be made significantly easier on the eye with some images. It'd be good if you could choose a lead image (one of Eugene would be best). We don't have one of Gilbert, but we do have a nice one of Bernard of Clairvaux.
  • I could move the statue up, sure, but I hate to overload the article with too many images. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Completely agree about overloading, but I don't think one per section would be too excessive. I think a lead image would be very helpful in making it easier on the eye; other than that, your call. I personally like File:B Eugen III.jpg, but without a better source... J Milburn (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Before nominating, I completely trolled through most of the possible Commons images, and nothing really struck me. The period is pretty dry for historical images, honestly. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
• Perhaps the references would look a little better if you moved each reference out to a "works cited" section, and cited them in the footnotes as "Smith, p. ##" as appropriate?
  • I'm hampered by the fact that this was how Srnec set the article up when he split the information out from the main Council of Reims article - we're not supposed to change referencing styles if we're not the primary editor. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
    • I would argue you are now the primary editor, but there's certainly no problem with us discussing the matter and concluding that it is the best way forward- I think it is, as it avoids the unecessary repetition; if you agree, I don't see any great harm in swapping it. If Srnec disagrees, I'm sure the three of us can discuss it and work something out as appopriate. J Milburn (talk) 23:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Also, for consistency, could we have an ISBN for the Knowles book? J Milburn (talk) 00:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
        • My edition doesn't have one, it's printing predates the ISBN system. I've thrown an OCLC number in to help. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting subject and the article's got great potential, but it needs some smoothing out first. J Milburn (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Second read through

• Still feeling a lead image would be nice; if you don't want to over-illustrate, perhaps move one of the two already used up? Both are of subjects integral to the article.
• "and was supposed to be in Trier," implies the summons was meant to be in Trier
• "on Boethius' De Trinitate" links?
• Still not sure about the references- do you feel the style I suggested would work better, personally? A different style?

I think part of the reason the article comes across as a little chaotic is that it was a chaotic event... No paperwork, change of venue, people fired for not turning up, no one had a copy of a book... Madness. Anyway, I guess my concerns are mostly aesthetic now. J Milburn (talk) 01:54, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

You are correct that it was a very chaotic event. The main reasons people even pay attention to it are 1) The great story of Theobald fleeing England in a fishing boat to attend and 2) Gilbert's trial that was held sorta-kinda at the Council. Obviously, I ended up here because of working on Theobald, and like a lot of my work, it just sorta kept growing and growing. Doubtful I'll take this to FAC, the chaotic nature of the event makes it just not very tidy and easy to deal with at FAC. I've dealt with all of the above, but there isn't an exact article on the Boethius work that got Gilbert in trouble, so I liked linked the treatise title to the subsection of Boethius' article that at least contains a mention of the work. If that isn't good for you, it's easy to remove. The references - normally I do references like in Hygeberht (coming to FAC soon! Copyedits and comments very welcome!), which is close to what you're looking for, but I don't really wanna get into a pissing match with Srnec over the issue. He probably won't complain, but... why look for trouble? And this article is so short that it's not really that big a problem to deal with the referencing style as it is. If you really feel it should be changed, I can do it, but since I'm not planning on FAC, I've not bothered before. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

My "two cents" are that it would probably be best to switch the referencing style- you're now the primary author, and we both feel that your way would be stronger. I'll leave it up to your call. In any case, it feels strong enough to promote now; congratulations! J Milburn (talk) 02:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

As none of the religion sections seemed appropriate, I have added it to European history. I have no objection to it being moved. J Milburn (talk) 02:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)