Talk:Baldwin II of Jerusalem/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Llywrch (talk · contribs) 03:52, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Starting review. This will take me a while. -- llywrch(talk) 03:52, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• In the secondary sources, "Ferdinandi, Sergio (2017)" is not cited anywhere in the article. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

llywrch writes

I've finally found the time to give this article a read-through & have some initial comments

• First, the lead section is far too long & detailed. The lead ought to be the part of the article which explains why the subject is important & provides an overview of the article. This lead provides so many details that I found it hard to find the outlines of his life; just a sense that Baldwin fought a lot of battles.
• This "just a sense that he fought a lot of battles" continues into the body of the article. I miss knowing just where Baldwin ranked amongst the leaders of the First Crusade. Was he in the first rank? One of the lower levels who rose to become King of Jerusalem thru skill -- or maybe luck? This article was written with use of some good secondary authorities: I would expect them to present informed opinions on his skills & personality.
• There are also a number of puzzling omissions in terms of continuity & context. For example, in the section "Early Life" one paragraph ends with the Crusaders being ferried over into Anatolia; the next paragraph begins with Tancred & Baldwin of Boulogne leaving the main body 8 months later. No mention of his role in the siege of Nicaea or the Battle of Dorylaeum, even if he was present. This could be done with a brief sentence or two, & doing so would establish his place in the pecking-order of the Crusade's leadership.
• It would also help if attention were given to how Baldwin's actions effected the lives & health of the polities he was involved with -- first the County of Edessa & afterwards the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was typical for historians of Runciman's generation to focus on the actions of the court & battlefield, but more recent historians now look beyond these to how the lives of the middle & lower classes were effected. For example, did Baldwin have a policy for dealing with the local Christians (who were rarely Catholic, & sometimes professed versions of Christianity that Roman Catholics found heretical?) or Moslems (who were present in large numbers, if not a majority?)
• One feature I miss is a section discussing the primary sources for his life. Some of the major primary historians are mentioned in this article -- William of Tyre is mentioned 6 times -- but the Armenian or Arabic historians at best make only token appearances. (Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is listed in the bibliography: there should be something of interest about the insights & biases those sources have.)

Sorry it took the better part of a year for someone to provide some comments on this article. -- llywrch (talk) 00:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your review and comments. (1) If the lead gives you the sense that he fought a lot of battles, the lead properly summarizes his life. Fighting was his primary occupation. (2) Please read the "Early life" section again. It clarifies that Baldwin of Le Bourg was related to Godfrey and Baldwin of Bouillon and Godfrey appointed Baldwin of Le Bourg to represent him, so I do not understand why do you think he was of lower rank. The section "County of Edessa - First years" makes it clear that he was made count by Baldwin of Bouillon. The section "King of Jerusalem - Ascension to the throne" is dedicated to the circumstances of his ascension to the throne. (3) Yes, unfortunatelly, Baldwin did not write a diary, so we cannot follow his life day by day, week by week or month by month: there are puzzling ommissions. If my understanding is correct, you suggest that two further battles should be mentioned even if his role in those battles was only marginal. (4) Books published during the last two decades and written by modern historians (by Barber, Köhler, Lock, MacEvitt, Tyerman, etc.) are cited in the article. In the article, there are references to Baldwin's relationship with the local Armenians in Edessa. Unfortunatelly, his relationship with the local Christians in Jerusalem is not well-documented, perhaps because the local Christians had not historians, like the Armenian Matthew of Edessa. (5) A section dedicated to the chroniclers of his time could be added, although this is not a requirement for GAs and it would only repeat information from articles dedicated to those chroniclers. Yes, Matthew of Edessa is only quoted three times. Maybe, because his narration covers only Baldwin's rule in Edessa, while William of Tyre gives a detailed description also of Baldwin's rule in Jerusalem. Muslim chroniclers are even more rarely mentioned, because their heroes were Muslim leaders. Could you specifically mention some pieces of information that you miss? Borsoka (talk) 01:53, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding. I had a busy week at work, then had a scare with my eyes that kept me from doing anything serious on Wikipedia.

From you response, it appears that I failed to explain just where this article has problems -- in the presentation. To pick up with the lead, there is no sense of what is important about Baldwin's life. We are presented with a shovelful of details, without any sense of importance. You don't need to mention every person involved in an activity -- that is what the body of the article is for. The idea is to present an outline of the article, & if one is skillful (which I am not), one can also add a hook to draw the reader further into the article. I had to struggle thru the lead alone.

So am I to surmise that he was one of the first rank of leaders because he was related to some of them? Baldwin had no lands & could have likely joined the Crusade as a hanger-on of his cousins. The experts, who have studied this subject, would be able to provide some idea of his role in the Crusades.

Yes, the record is incomplete. However, a skillful writer would find ways to make smooth transitions between the known events. Even to simply write, "After his interview with the Emperor, the next documented event in his life is when he joined Tancred to leave the main army to invade Cilicia around 15 September 1097."

There are several problems with how the battles are presented. One is that there is little attempt to put them in context, to provide any explanation why some might be more important than others. If his life was a series of running about putting out fires, then explain that. If he was following some grand strategy (which the secondary authorities would explain), tell us. Another problem lies in how the information is structured. Here is a detailed critique of one section, "First years":

1st paragraph -- The opening sentence goes nowhere. I'll admit that there is the challenge of keeping 2 Baldwins straight, but that is the kind of care I'd expect in a Good Article. As for the rest of the paragraph, you omit mentioning that the reason Baldwin of Boulogne picked Baldwin of Bourcq to succeed him as Count of Edessa was that he had to go to Jerusalem to be king. (It would be good to know why he picked Baldwin for this honor; so far all we've been told of him is that he accompanied other nobles on their campaigns.)

Next paragraph -- Mention of his marriage to Morphia, who appears no more in this article. (I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.) Not even the fact her father Gabriel was overthrown & killed in 1103 following the fall of Meltene. (Why didn't Baldwin come to his rescue?) Then we are presented with the predations of Sökmen. We aare given little detail about the fighting (e.g., losses, tactics, etc.) so that Matthew of Edessa's quotation appears pointless.

3rd paragraph -- One sentence about Joscelin, then the rest of this paragraph again about something else: the Egyptian campaign against the central kingdom. This is handled tersely again, & the point of Baldwin's involvement is left something of a puzzle to the uninformed reader.

Final paragraph -- Again begins with a sentence not related to the rest of the paragraph -- which is about the ransom of Bohemond of Antioch. From Runciman's account, negotiations to ransom Bohemond was much more complex than provided here. No real explantion for Baldwin's motivations to recover Bohemond, who was not his liege.

I'll note there is a troublesome omission in this article, an anecdote -- which Runciman repeats from William of Tyre -- that provides an insight to Baldwin's character: Baldwin managed to convince his father-in-law, Gabriel, to give him 30,000 besants by declaring he had promised to give his knights that money, & if he failed in that he would shave off his beard; his men joined in the deception, affirming that their master had indeed made such an oath; Gabriel hastened to give him the money -- for Armenians considered a beard necessary to manly dignity, & were shocked that so many Crusaders were clean-shaven -- & made Baldwin swear he would never pledge his beard again. (Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. 2, p. 37) What this anecdote reveals is not only Baldwin's wiliness & his need for money (which explain's Matthew of Edessa's characterization that Baldwin was "avaricious"), but also the physical detail he had a beard. (I'll admit that Runciman mentions this anecdote to support his claim that Baldwin, while in constant need of money to pay his soldiers, was less arbitrary & more gentle in his methods than King Baldwin of Jerusalem. He appears to have some diplomatic skills this article doesn't even suggest might exist.)

I could go on. The point is that except for his military record, his life is not well covered. And what we have is not presented in a readable manner. The more I read this, the more I am convinced this need a more thorough rewrite to bring out the subject.

I'm going to leave this on hold for a few days to see if you want to work on it, otherwise I'll need to fail it for insufficient explication & readability. -- llywrch (talk) 23:36, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you for your review. I think our approach is so different that we could hardly reach a consensus. I will leave the article to be edited by other editors and will return a couple of months later. Borsoka (talk) 06:52, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Very well, I'll go ahead & fail this. Good luck with your future nominations. -- llywrch (talk) 07:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)