Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 17:31, 25 May 2007.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Passed GA; I think this is ready to try for FA. It may be of interest (if only for comparison purposes) that Peterborough Chronicle is already an FA. Mike Christie (talk) 11:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support. A very clearly-written and informative article. I was a bit concerned by the amount to which it relies on one book (Swanton), but on reflection I don't believe that this is a problem. (On another note, while Peterborough Chronicle is also a well-written article, it really needs some footnotes. Anyone up for the job?) MLilburne 16:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Well done on a fascinating article and interesting graphics/maps etc. I have a few comments and suggestions but am very close to support! I realize that many of these will have obvious answers to you: I know little about this subject so am easily confused and am going to give you the benefit of some of the causes of my confusion etc!!

Lead: Are "as late as" and "some time in" necessary? They grate somehow. For an uninformed reader "Having been created in Wessex, the Chronicle is not unbiased" needs some clarification and historical context. What does the "In many places" phrase mean? I think you could expand the lead to include information about how the Chronicles are important sources about the development of English.

*Composition section mainly, but in other places too: It would be good to have a source indicated for each paragraph at least, even if it is always the same one.

*Section headings A2/G. Should it include W? And also mention the G in the text somehow

*"the biases of the scribes who created them" This gets mentioned a couple of times: this section might benefit from some reworking or rewording to avoid repetition of this sort.

Good luck and I hope this is helpful --Slp1 13:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the lead is now fixed -- I removed some of the grating language; I also took out the note about "Having been created in Wessex", since that's explained further down, and in fact the biases are not only West Saxon, so it was slightly misleading. "In many places" was changed. As for the development of English, there is already a sentence there -- is that enough?

I have cleaned up the sources on the composition section.

A² and G -- my understanding is that A² is the usual way to refer to this manuscript (it's not one of the main ones so it doesn't get that many mentions anyway). I added the G simply to make it clearer why it occupies the place it does in the list. I think the W is now quite outdated; Wheloc's edition is nearly four hundred years old, so that's just of historical interest and I don't think needs to be mentioned in the listing here.

Biases -- I've reworded this a little; the intent was to contrast, on the one hand, biases identifiable by comparing the chronicle with other historical information, with, on the other hand, biases revealed by comparing different versions of the chronicle with each other. Let me know if it doesn't say that well enough.

Thanks for the helpful comments -- I hope these changes address your concerns. Mike Christie (talk) 00:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support. An interesting article, which largely does a lucid job of explaining an exceptionally complex document in a short article.

A few points:

I found it hard to follow the early account of when the chronicle was first written and what the first manuscripts that survive consisted of. Having reread it, I think the problem is that a piece of essential information is omitteed early on: that the chronicles described events dating from 60BC and way back, and some included material from Bede, etc. The article at first made it seem, to this reader at least, that the chronicles might have only been describing events from Alfred's reign onwards. The phrase "up to 891" therefore was unclear to me, as it stood, particularly as it seemed to clash with "early 890s". I was also unsure whether the earlier, lost manuscripts were themselves retrospective surveys of history or were, at least partly, contemporary accounts: in other words, did Anglo-Saxons start chronicling before Alfred's reign, or was the whole thing written retrospectively then? These questions were partly cleared up for me later in the article; but I do think an explanatory sentence or two is needed earlier on to help the readers get their bearings.

"It is known that the Winchester manuscript is at least two removes from the original of the Chronicle." At that point I wanted to know how that is known, if this is the earliest surviving manuscript. Later there is some explanation of all the interlinkings, but I needed more information at that point.

The business of the Peterborough chronicle containing some of the earliest Middle English text known, is repeated rather too often, in my opinion.

Sometimes the article talks of the English language, sometimes of Anglo-Saxon or Old English. I'm not comfortable with the word "English" in this context and would rather the article stuck to calling the language Anglo-Saxon or Old English, so as not to muddy the waters.

When I've had to look something up in the ASC, I've often found the dating to be well out: perhaps an explanation of the vagaries of the dating might be added. The chronicle seems to be set out by year; how often did the monks update them? Did they write the entry for one year all in one go? Sometimes it appears that they filled several years in at once: if so, that could be a cause of the inaccuracies.

If it is known, I'd be interested to know why the chronicles petered out when they did. Were they suppressed by the Normans? Were the monks becoming culturally French? Were the chronicles replaced by Latin equivalents? I've no idea; but I'd be interested to read about that.

Anyway, congratulations on a well-written article. qp10qp 01:29, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are very helpful questions -- thank you. I'll be dealing with some of these questions and copying the rest to the talk page for further research (I don't know the answers to all of them). Mike Christie (talk) 01:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some updates to address some of the points. The two I can't answer are the one about the Winchester manuscript being at least two removes from the original, and the query about the reason the chronicles ceased being updated. I'd be interested in the answers but have no sources for them. I've recorded these questions on the article talk page as points to be researched. Thanks again. Mike Christie (talk) 02:29, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support, but could do with fine scrutiny of the wording. I see redundant "alsos" and "thens". The joining of ideas into sentences is uncomfortable in a few places. Good work overall. Tony 13:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the detailed copy-edit; I appreciate it. I'll look at the wording again and see if I can clean it up any further. Mike Christie (talk) 14:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.