Talk:Karl Knutsson

Untitled

Can someone make the infobox style match the succession box style? I tried for a bit and couldn't do that and float it... but my html isn't so great. Thanks gren 29 June 2005 22:45 (UTC)

Correct Name

Was this guy actually crowned as charles or Karl or what? Charles sounds to be suspiciously anglicised version of the name, especially as the article says he was called Karl something before becoming king. Surely the article should call him Karl if that was what people would have called him at the time. This issue affects a number of related articles where different versions of the names of different people are being used interchangeably. Can someone settle on one form (I would vote for the form actually used in the country concerned, assuming it can be written in this alphabet. Sandpiper 23:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Charles is the anglicization of Karl. Using Charles for him is no weirder than using it for Charles XII (who is most certainly always called that), using it for Charles III of Spain, and so forth. john k 01:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, indeed, but what is the point of inventing a name which a person never used, and using that in an encyclopedia instead of his real name? Sandpiper 11:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Sandpiper is so right. Swedes, Norwegians, Germans and others effected do not like the "suspiciously anglicised version" of this name (well put!), though very few of them might be what they would consider impolite enough to admit it in English. The colonial or imperialistic tradition, which must have begun with France or England, where "Charles" is a name, is obsolete today, especially in American English. Carl, usually spelled with a "C", is an English-language name nowadays and should be allowed to stand alone on its own two feet as such. Though Voltaire wrote about one Swedish king as Charles XII, he was in fact writing in French. The "suspiciously anglicised version" followed that in what feels to many like a British attempt dominate eveything, and this makes people of the above mentioned nationalities uncomfortable. Would someone who knows how please rename all the previous Swedish kings by this name so that Wikipedia has them matching the current one, Carl XVI Gustaf? That's Carl I (Karl Sverkersson), Carl II (Karl Knutsson), Carl IX, Carl X Gustav (Karl Gustaf of the Palatinate), Carl XI, Carl XII, Carl XIII, Carl XIV John and Carl XV? (Carls III-VIII were inventions of a propagandist in the 16th century and never existed). (J T Demitz 01:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC))

"Translating" the names of kings is a long standing convention and is used by historians everywhere. For example all kings named "Charles" or "Carlos" are called "Karl" in Nationalencyklopedin. There's no reason to use another convention in Wikipedia. - Duribald (talk) 16:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

"Duribald" is on thin ice using Nationalencyklopedin as a reference or tool of argument in discussing the translation of personal names to English, a major international language. (Whatever the Swedes want to do with such things is of little or no concern to anyone else in the world.) "Duribald" is quite right though about the "long standing convention", but it originated long ago when there were no legal names, no legal spellings of any names and thus no way to be consistent or intelligent about these things. It also originated when most people didn't know how to read and had to rely on oral readings by others, if at all, to enjoy the written word. Thus it was and still is very important to use the phonetics of the language being read - for personal as well as geographic names - in order for a text about history to be smooth enough to get through at all. I whole-heartedly agree that all names should be translated into their legitimate forms in English texts and listings. What I tried to say above it that there are special conditions re: Carl and a small number of other names (such as Maria as legitimate as Mary) that have become names of their own in American English. The current King of Sweden numbers himself as the sixteenth Carl and his legal name is Carl Gustaf, not Charles Godstowe. Why not spell all his namesake predecessors Carl, then, in a modern world, when it is a common and legitimate American name today? For all his other predecessors, we can still use Reynold for Ragnvald, Anwynd for Anund, Christopher for Kristoffer (e. g.) and don't have to face anything else until a King of Sweden registers a legal spelling of Ragnvald or Anund or Kristoffer, according to the (very first) Swedish name law of 1901. To round off with Nationalencyklopedin again, and to show it some respect anyway, certainly it isn't going to list the current King of Spain as Johan Karl, though his legal name if Juan Carlos? Let's just all be reasonable in whatever policies we adopt and/or kling to. It ain't always easy... Unsigned comment by J T Demitz (talk) 19:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Charles VIII is a poor name indeed, not because it is an Anglicization, but because it defies the common name standard and is an inherently problematic name. He was actually the second Karl/Charles, but was retrospectively and inaccurately called the 8th, yet it would be futile to attempt to correct the name at this point. This whole issue can be sidestepped, however, if we simply abide the common name convention, which would place his article at Karl Knutsson (Bonde). In fact, didn't this article used to be at "Karl Knutsson (Bonde)" at one point? Anyway, this is the form of his name most commonly used in English, as I will demonstrate with the following search index below: Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 04:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Google book search

• "Carl II of Sweden" 0 books
• "Carl VIII of Sweden" 2 books
• "Karl II of Sweden" 2 books
• "Karl VIII of Sweden" 5 books
• "Charles II of Sweden" 117 books
• "Charles VIII of Sweden" 140 books
• "Karl Knutsson Bonde" 634 books
• "Karl Knutsson" -Bonde 901 books

Google scholarly article search

• "Carl II of Sweden" 0 articles
• "Carl VIII of Sweden" 0 articles
• "Karl II of Sweden" 1 article
• "Karl VIII of Sweden" 0 articles
• "Charles II of Sweden" 12 articles
• "Charles VIII of Sweden" 4 articles
• "Karl Knutsson Bonde" 75 articles
• "Karl Knutsson" -Bonde 163 articles

I was surprised to see so many hits for "Charles II of Sweden" and investigated. It seems that all (?) hits actually refer to Charles XII of Sweden. In one case I saw the text actually said XII but the X was not noted by the google reader -- however, in most cases it was truly written as Charles II and referred to people and events between 1680 -1730. I would be interested in why this mistake is so common? Was Charles XII actually known as Charles II in Europe?

Fred-J 18:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Carl II (I don't like Charles anymore for kings that have a lovely name - Carl - that has become common in English since the French & British began to call them "Charles" a looong time ago, but that's just one man's - ? - dislike) - anyway - Carl II of Sweden (Carl I of Norway) is what Knutsson should have been called, is what he was and what he (knowing that) called himself, but this was covered up about a century later when his name successor wanted to use Carl IX (not Carl III) to look more glorious. That cover-up succeeded very well in creating this mess, which only has been unraveling in English, in the interest of the truth, since about 1996 now. Carl XII (the famous warrior king) was never called Carl II as King of Sweden, but indeed of the tiny German duchy he also ruled (Palatinate-Zweibrücken). He should actually have been Carl VI of Sweden (as per above) but his family kept up the incorrect numbering started by his great-great-grandfather very strictly. Too late to fix now, with the current king also adhering to it. Just thought I'd give a bit of background. Cordially, SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Consistency with article on Christian I of Denmark

This article seems to have different details on the overlap period when Christian became king of sweden to those in the other article. (particularly who were regents/rebels) Sandpiper 01:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

naming convention- inconsistencies

I notice the article starts by mentioning Karl Knutsson (Bonde), the son of Knut (Tordsson) Bonde. Now, I am not familiar with this method of naming, but I take it the son is called Knutsson because he is son of Knut. My query is what about the brackets. Should they be around ....son, or Bonde (their family name?) The article should name people consistently. Sandpiper 12:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Family names were not commonly used in medieval Sweden and even within families which had one, they were not consistently used. Scholarly convention is to put these family names which were either not used consistently or not used at all until a later period in brackets, hence Karl Knutsson (Bonde) (family name used during the middle ages, but only by some members) or Jöns Bengtsson (Oxenstierna) (family name adopted only in the late 16th century). Karl Knutsson's father was usually known as Knut Bonde. The patronymic within brackets is in this case probably used in order to differentiate him from some relative also known as Knut Bonde. Uppland 12:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Scholarly convention here means genealogic convention, I guess. It is not clear to me that wikipedia should follow those. For instance, history textbooks do not write that way. // Habj 23:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Sandpiper is right and Habj, too. There is definitely an error in the text concerned. It should read "Knut Tordsson (Bonde)" if using the names in Swedish. Neither Carl, son of Canute, nor his father Canute, son of Tord (no English version of that one is known to me), ever used the Bonde surname. It became a surname, and that of one of Sweden's longest living "noble" families (still going strong) around the end of the 16th century. Only the nobility started using surnames then. NO ONE (excuse me for shouting!) had any surnames until then in Sweden, though some regular soldiers had nicknames to distinguish them from all the other Anders Anderssons. 80% of the population had no surnames at all, other than new patromymics inherited every generation, until they began adopting them in the 1880's. Women had no legal names at all until 1901. Oh, by the way, let's not be overly awed by the term "scholarly convention" in this case! Common sense and consistency are what are really important.Unsigned comment by J T Demitz (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with JT. We should use common sense and consistency, and to that end, I would advocate moving this article to Karl Knutsson (Bonde). He is overwhelmingly known as Karl Knutsson, not Charles the [whichever] in English-language sources. (See my search index above.) Wilhelm Meis (Quatsch!) 04:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Karl Knutsson (Bonde) became a regent of Sweden under that name, lost his position, came back as a king, was deposed, and came back a 2nd and a 3rd time. It would be ridiculous to refer to his time as a regent under any of the possible royal names, and the general convention has become to avoid numerated royal names in his case. (Besides, there's no reason to shout, Demitz, you're right about the general pattern, but Uppland is perfectly right: a few noblemen - including Tord Bonde, and some(!) of his relatives - did actually use surnames before the 16th century. though.) Orjemi (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The article, if moved at all, should be moved to Charles II of Sweden, since that's what he called himself, correctly. Thát would be common sense.

Furthermore, there were no surnames in Sweden during those times. Whether or not some people, often at variance between generations and family branches and eras (often changing from decade to decade!), used some arms symbols and words/bynames to identify them, is irrelevant to the fact that there were no surnames. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 13:57, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

References

numbering

I don't like that we basically ignore the standard post-facto numbering in favor of ORish claims that he is the second Charles to rule Sweden. All kinds of ordinals are used which were not used in monarchs' life-times, and the fact that such ordinals may not be accurate is no reason not to use them. Charles IX was not the ninth Charles to rule Sweden, but we still call him that, not so much because that is what he called himself as because that is what historians use. Historians similarly use Charles VIII for this king, and that is where the article is still located. We shouldn't refer to him as "Charles II," which seems to be close to a neologism. john k (talk) 07:45, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Within the context that he in his own time indeed was called Carl (Charles) II, I do not quite understand the complaint. This, after all, is in the article:

• Charles's first queen's tombstone at Vadstena as well as his coins thus correctly refer to him as Charles II.

and his wife's tombstone with "Caroli Secundi" is shown in an image in her article. I will add a ref. SergeWoodzing (talk) 09:00, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. Ivan VI of Russia was called "Ivan IV", iirc. The Ptolemies did not use numbers at all, and Ptolemy Soter or Ptolemy Philopator or about as good as the versions with ordinals. Of course the fact that "Charles II" was the contemporary designation should be mentioned in the article. But we should use the more common historical designation of Charles VIII. john k (talk) 13:53, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen that anyone has requested that the article be name-changed, and I see nothing wrong with it the way it is now, in this regard. SergeWoodzing (talk) 07:37, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Wilhelm Meis has made a clear argument above that the article should be moved to Karl Knutsson Bonde, which would be more in line with actual useage and bypass the problem of assigning a numeral.

Andejons (talk) 08:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Third opinion: I think the article is fine as is. The point is that the article should be named based on the most common usage in contemporary times. Naming this article after the guy's actual name would be out of line with policy, I think. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a naming convention for articles about kings. As you can clearly see here, this naming convention is followed for all Swedish kings. Cases could be made for different article names for every single one of them, but the general opinion that has evolved, seems to be that it is best to follow a convention, so that the articles can be found under predictable titles. I support this.--Barend (talk) 00:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the convention is ill-suited to Swedish kings, just because of the difficulty in assigning numerals. And it's certainly not followed for all kings: not for the two kings called Inge, nor for the Eriks. Predictability is fine, but it should not be used as an excuse to use obscure names when there are more well-known alternatives. There are, after all, redirects to help with finding articles.

Andejons (talk) 07:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I see the ordinal numbering still continues to be an issue in the article text. FWIW, I still think this article should be renamed Karl Knutsson (Bonde), and that Gustav I of Sweden should be renamed Gustav Vasa. Partly because for Swedish Karls the ordinals become controversial, and partly because these two kings are so overwhelmingly known by names that do not use (or need) ordinals. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 16:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

This is English Wikipedia. None of the Swedish kings are known as "Karl" in English. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 23:23, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Ordinal numbers for Swedish kings are a later invention an was highly likely not used by contemporary writers and scholars but added much later. Ref [3] states directly that the ordinal number controversy is grounded in *lack* of documentation and not on stated facts by reliable sources. This article should be renamed as stated above and the ordinal controversy paragraph moved further down. Jolun101 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.230.179.251 (talk) 15:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Birth details

The exact date (month & day) and place of Carl's birth have now been added without a source. I have never seen them before, and I should have I think. Please source, or remove if not academic! SergeWoodzing (talk) 09:58, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done (removed) SergeWoodzing (talk) 11:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 27 May 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Closed as move to the proposed title as they solar to be WP:COMMONNAME as well as WP:CONCISE. (non-admin closure) Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 12:10, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

---

• Charles VIII of Sweden → Karl Knutsson
• Charles VII of Sweden → Karl Sverkersson

– Per WP:COMMONNAME. For Medieval Swedish monarchs, the non-anglicized names seem to be preferred in most of the modern English literature, and the retrospectively applied numerals that are based on Johannes Magnus' pseudohistory are often not used. The suggested names are used e.g. in the The New Cambridge Medieval History series ([1][2]) and in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia ([3][4]).

The comparison between following Google Books searches suggests than these are indeed the common names:

• Karl Sverkersson, "Karl VII" Sweden and "Charles VII" Sweden
• Karl Knutsson, "Charles Knutsson" and "Charles VIII" Sweden

For Karl Knutsson, there is also the question whether the noble family name Bonde should be included as Karl Knutsson (Bonde) like in svwiki and many other encyclopedias (possibly without parentheses). But since there are no other "Karl Knutssons" in enwiki, we should use the most WP:CONCISE title. Even if e.g. sv:Karl Knutsson (Tre Rosor) had a page, the king would still be the primary topic. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:35, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Support. The parenthesis with the family is standard in Swedish scholarly literature for nobles who did not themselves use the family name. It should be evalutated as a possible part of the name, not a disambiguation. It still yields far fewer titles when searching [5], and most of them does not place it in parenthesis, so the shorter version is prefered. Andejons (talk) 12:18, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Support per nom. Mellk (talk) 23:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Support per nom. Gvssy (talk) 12:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Support per nom Tinkaer1991 (talk) 14:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

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.