Talk:Quia maior

Quia maior has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: November 23, 2023. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Quia maior appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 November 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that according to Pope Innocent III's 1213 letter Quia maior, the number of the beast refers to the number of years since Muhammad's migration from Medina to Mecca?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Quia maior.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Fritzmann2002 talk 17:56, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that according to Pope Innocent III's 1213 letter Quia maior, the number of the beast (666) refers to the number of years since Muhammad's migration from Medina to Mecca? Source: Cole, Penny J. (1991). The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270. p. 106.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/West Nias Regency

Created by Kingoflettuce (talk). Self-nominated at 17:37, 28 October 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Quia maior; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

The article has recently undergone a major expansion. Kingoflettuce prudently replaced a large chunk of direct quote from the letter with a scholarly interpretation of the letter's content, which both improves the quality of the article and counts as a fivefold expansion. The sources cited are of the highest quality and testify to the subject's notability. I was able to verify the hook and though a few more bits from the article would make good hooks too, I am satisfied with the nominator's choice. I only made a minor adjustment to it. Spot checks have revealed no close paraphrasing. I suppose the image of Innocent could be nominated too though he is not the subject of the hook; it may come in handy should the promoters struggle to find images for hooks. Anyway, this one is good to go! Surtsicna (talk) 09:24, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

Passed. Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:44, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion 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.

This review is transcluded from Talk:Quia maior/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 21:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The "Background" section is not a background section. Background sections are supposed to provide context information that help the reader to place the topic within the broader historic context, and to assess the significance of the topic discussed. Such information can be very helpful to the reader, but are not strictly pertinent to the article. Your section instead covers the history of the bull itself. Please rename that section accordingly; if you could provide an actual background section in addition, that would be fantastic, but not strictly required for GAN.

Renamed to "Publication history" KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Innocent himself was particularly influenced by the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, who had stressed the connection between salvation and military service to Christ. – How did this influenced the Quia major, or in other words: Why is it relevant? (I think it is somehow, but the reader should not need to guess)

Reworded to show the relevance. KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to Quia maior, Innocent wrote two other shorter crusade-related letters – When? After? Before?

They were sent out in the same month, according to the secondary sources (and that's mentioned at the end of the quoted sentence). When exactly each one was written is unclear KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Written in Latin, the letter begins with the words Quia maior.... And what is the translation of these two words?

I'm not able to do a word-for-word translation since I don't speak Latin and I doubt it'd be very helpful anyway. Bull titles are usually taken from the opening few words which wouldn't be very coherent without the rest of the sentence. Bird et al's translation of the opening sentence goes, "Because there is now a greater need than ever before..." KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These people would also be exempt from paying interest on all their loans. – I guess, only the loans they got from the church? Or how does the pope have the power to determine any loan from anybody?

Not quite, mostly loans from Jewish moneylenders. Have tweaked that part a bit. The source doesn't elaborate on how they are to be "compelled" to follow the ruling so I just left that in quote marks but I think generally they'd be banned from further interaction with Christians if they insisted on collecting interest. And Christians would be threatened with exommunication if they went against that. KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Innocent prohibits […] engaging in piracy against Muslims. – Why would he do that? I do not understand. Can you add an explanation?

Just wars weren't supposed to be offensive or profitable. Piracy against Muslims would have been outside the scope of defending the Holy Land from infidels. This is not explicitly stated in the secondary sources or the letter itself though, so to add it seems like "original research" to me. KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How do we know about this bull? I assume that one, or several, originals are preserved? This is lacking from the article.

Surprisingly none of the secondary sources I've cited appear to talk about the manuscriptural history of the letter. Will keep looking KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Anyhow, I think I've done a very comprehensive search of the existing literature on this letter and if the manuscriptural history isn't mentioned in the most thorough sources on the subject, I don't believe a GA should be expected to talk about it. I found snippets in another source but seems much too technical and unmeaningful to the general reader KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:35, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The first sentence should provide a concise definition of the topic. I have the impression that the lead misses the point: that the bull calls for another crusade. Maybe the first sentence could state this.

I'm quite confused; the lede precisely states "In it, Innocent presents crusading as a moral obligation for all Christians and lays out his plan to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land from the Muslims." And it also says that it's one of three crusade-related letters sent out in the same month. I would not use the phrase "calls for another crusade" (or "calling for the Fifth Crusade") though, since that would be somewhat anachronistic and an actual operation was only formalised at the Fourth Lateran Council (also mentioned in lede). I'm not sure all this info can or should be squeezed into the first sentence (which after all is not equivalent to the "lede") KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is everything, nice little article! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Much appreciated. Thank you for the review KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 01:24, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the improvements, and the replies make sense to me. Promoting now. Jens Lallensack (talk) 01:40, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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.