Talk:Ecgberht, King of Wessex/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Popular culture section re-added

An editor has re-added the popular culture section that I removed last year, with a sentence about Egbert's characterization in a TV program. Currently it's uncited, though no doubt a cite could be added. My preference would be to only include popular culture mentions of Egbert if they are mentioned in secondary sources that are primarily about Egbert. This might be possible for Alfred the Great, for example, since there might be depictions of Alfred that have been discussed in the literature in the context of the popular image of Alfred over the last couple of centuries. I don't think it's likely to be true for Egbert. Any other opinions on whether this section should stay? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I've removed it again. The TV show is notoriously inaccurate (Making Rollo the sibling of Ragnar Lodbrok is the most glaring example - since Rollo is circa 900 and Ragnar is circa 820 or so). It's trivia and we don't include that unless it tells us something about the historical person the article is about OR about how the wider culture sees the person - which would need to be based on secondary sources that discuss the depictions and how they fit into the wider view of history. This section does neither. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:23, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree. It tells readers nothing about Egbert. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Me too. IMHO this is the best approach, and not only for historical people, which I believe is covered by WP:TRIVIA. Here, the TV show is not a reliable source for Egbert. It would be perfectly sensible to link an article on the TV show to Egbert, but I don't believe the reverse to be true. Nortonius (talk) 10:58, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you're all wrong, but it looks like I'm outvoted.

Sardaka (talk) 09:00, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 April 2017

Hoever, Redburga or Raedburh (788c-839) may have been the wife of king Egbert of Wessex and may have been the sister-in-law of Charlemagne as the sister of his fourth wife, Luitgard; other sources describe her as his sister (although Charlemagne's only sister was named Gisela) or his great-granddaughter (which would be difficult to accomplish in the forty-six years after Charlemagne's birth) or the daughter of his sister-in-law or his niece. Some genealogies identify her as the granddaughter of Pepin the Short and great-granddaughter of Charles Martel; other scholars doubt that she existed at all, other than as a name in a much later manuscript, her existence might been forged to link the early Kings of England to the great West Emperor.

She appears in a medieval manuscript from Oxford and is described as "regis Francorum sororia" which translates as "sister to the King of the Franks". More specifically, sororia means "pertaining to someone's sister", hence sister-in-law. Pwhiteco (talk) 12:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, we follow reliable sources, so any suggested edit needs to be accompanied by the sources that support the information. We also follow secondary sources, not primary sources such as medieval manuscripts. So the sources ideally will be modern historical works. Because this is a featured article, the sources also need to be high quality - so newspaper accounts or older historical works are less useful. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:31, 11 April 2017 (UTC)