Talk:Joannes-Henricus de Franckenberg

Title and thus article name questioned

To my knowledge, there has never been a Cardinal of Franckenberg for the same reason as there was never a John-Henry Cardinal of the Franks' mountain: Assuming there was a count of the countship Frankenberg who therefore was called in the original German language Graf von Frankenberg – such meant that the family name had become von Frankenberg. When such person would have become a cardinal, in English one might have called him Cardinal Joannes-Henricus von Frankenberg or Joannes-Henricus Cardinal von Frankenberg.
Unfortunately, in the days of the cardinal, the noble title was not even German at all. I quote a German text: "Die Priesterweihe empfing er in Mechelen am 14. Mai 1797 aus den Händen des dortigen Erzbischofs Kardinal Jean Marie de Franckenberg." I admit that I don't know how the Jean Marie came there - even in French it should have been Jean Henri, but the acceptance of the French spelling of the family name is obvious. That's also how I found it from the horse's mouth in the Dutch language list of archbishops of Mechelen: Joannes-Henricus Kardinaal de Franckenberg (1759-1801). The family name occurs for many people in the English language as "de Franckenberg". Thus we must call him Cardinal Joannes-Henricus de Franckenberg or Joannes-Henricus Cardinal de Franckenberg.
Else we should have to rename the article on Beethoven as Ludwig of Beethoven; though this man was actually well-known as Ludwig von Beethoven, notice that the article by that name redirects towards Ludwig van Beethoven as this was the true (Flemish) name: his grandparents lived in Mechelen. If this is respected for one whose father actually moved to a German speaking area, it must surely be respected for the cardinal who may have been a count of a (perhaps by France conquered) German speaking countship but clearly had a French language noble title when he moved to Mechelen, who surely never had an English translation for his name. — SomeHuman 2006-06-11 09:16 (UTC)

First time I write here, I'm doing my thesis on Jean-Henri/Johannes-Henrikus/... (Student from Leuven, thesis is for June 2007) The point is a bit far fetched imo, but on the other hand valid too. I think the best solution is simply to change the title of this article to Joannes-Henricus, Cardinal de Franckenberg. What happened as I see it was that someone translated the work of A. THEINER: Jean Henri, comte de Frankenberg, cardinal archevèque de Malines, primat de Belgique et sa lutte pour la liberté de l’Eglise et pour les séminaires épiscopaux sous l’emperéreur Joseph II, Leuven, 1852, translating the part "Cardinal de Franckenberg" too literal into "of" and of course in Dutch he is also known as "van Franckenberg" (he signed his letters and documents with this and with de Franckenberg, see the archbishopical archives in Mechelen/Malines for this).

I name this work because all the info in this article is in that work, while other works have more an indepth biography of him plus they have been made in the 20th century: D. DE CLERCQ, Cinq archevêques, from : Ecclesiae particulares aevo moderno : studia et documenta, 2, Paris, 1974.

So anyway, if someone can simple change the title, I think everything can be put to rest? — 80.201.42.221 2006-08-10 16:55 (UTC)

Obviously. Since the origin of "of Franckenberg" is clearly based on a mistake, no objections must be expected. Done. — SomeHuman 2006-08-10 19:17 (UTC)

The Catholic Encyclopedia refers to this individual as "Johann Heinrich, Graf von Frankenberg".[1] Olessi (talk) 23:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Belgium ?

(Originally posted underneath the 2006-08-10 19:17 (UTC) edit of section #Title and thus article name questioned)
One more thing: There is twice a mentioning in the article to the country Belgium. This is a mistake since Belgium was founded in 1830, a more correct name for the land at that time would be the Austrian Netherlands. — User:217.136.188.245 2006-08-13 13:39 (UTC) (originally unsigned and undated)

Actually, 'Belgium' is mentioned three times: once as title 'Primate of Belgium', thus one might verify (1) whether the Archbishop of Mechelen at the time was indeed a Primate, and if so (2) what name the Roman Catholic Church gave to the circumscription. Then further on twice, but I did not figure out when exactly Joannes-Henricus de Franckenberg returned: he remained archbishop after the 'Austrian Netherlands' had ceased to exist, see Southern Netherlands. — SomeHuman 2006-08-14 14:16 (UTC)

I have looked at the documents currently at my disposal and in his titles (I have not checked all of them yet), his title is "Primate of the Netherlands" (Primaet der Nederlanden), not of Belgium. The confusion is that in Latin the region is written Belgium, but they do not mean the country Belgium (to which the hyperlink is leading to) but the entire Lowlands. Since I would take the entire article is in English or pointing out which things are in another language, the reference to Belgium in the part of him being Primate should at least clearly state that that is the Latin translation of one of his titles. So to answer those questions: yes he was a Primate (1) but not of the country Belgium but of the Netherlands which is Belgium in Latin (roughly said) (2).

Which "return" are you refering to?

In 1779 he returned after being made cardinal on June first, 1778 and on July 22 1787 from a stay at the royal court of the emperor after a discussion concerning the Seminarie-General. I thought there was one occasion more he had to go somewhere but I can't remember out of the top of my head.

About him remaining archbishop of the Austrian Netherlands, where is that exactly written cause I looked at his "Herderlyken Brief" of 1801 and he just refers to himself as "archbishop of Malines", not of the Austrian Netherlands. — 80.201.38.200 2006-08-15 14:40 (UTC) (originally unsigned and undated)

I assume 'Primate of Belgium' with a footnote might help but seems not the best solution. In the English language Wikipedia, it cannot be 'Primate of the Netherlands' for that would definitely refer to the present-day country, as wrong as 'Belgium' suggests but the latter is at least a bit more acceptable as the Latin name of the Roman Catholic circumscription. Thus I think 'Primate of the Low Countries' (that name is historically acceptable in English for then) may be most proper.

The return is the one mentioned in the article as "On his return to Belgium" from Vienna, which I see you dated at July 1787. There was no suggestion of an 'Archbishop of the Austrian Netherlands', just one for the name of the country he returned to, which name is used again just a little further in the article, just before "The country was already disturbed by insurrectionary movements" that had made me wonder about the year. It now seems this was well before the 'Austrian Netherlands' ceased to exist (1790 or 1794). But inside the article a 'Primate of the Austrian Low Countries' was shown; I assume this might better be simply 'Primate of the Low Countries' as on the opening line, since that seems to have been the title (though possibly not quite the size of the circumscription) that he maintained after the Austrian period as well.

Hence, the name 'Belgium' will no longer occur in the article. Thanks for your great help. — SomeHuman 2006-08-16 20:47 - 21:50 (UTC)