Talk:Pelagius of Asturias

Legend

The words "semi-legendary" do not appear as yet in this article. Like Arthur's, Pelayo's name does not figure in any 8th century documents. Or am I mistaken? Some reference to the material that first presents Pelayo would be a good addition. --Wetman 05:37, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

"The history of 8th century Asturias is obscure. Contemporary sources are practically nonexistent, and the chroniclers writing two hundred years later had a vested interest in glorifying the ancestors of their own powerful patrons. The traditional accounts, written in the 9th and early 10th, relate the story of Pelayo, a member of the Visigothic nobility, or even perhaps of the royal family, who led the Asturians in several losing skirmishes against Muslim troops."

Source: Teofilo F. Ruiz (1981), "Asturias-Leon (718-1037)", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Volume 1, pages 625-626.

--Stbalbach 12:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I am not aware that as much legend surrounds Pelayo as otherwise one could expect for a founding figure of an obscure period. I am presently refining the article with citations. Srnec 18:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Pelayo is no legend, is no like Arturo, and it`s easy to find the text, the start of the kingdom, or the death of Munuza, the ruler of north muslim Spain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SPQRes (talk • contribs) 15:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Name

Is Pelayo a Visigothic or an Asturian name?

Pelayo is the Spanish rendering of the old Roman name "Pelagius." Pelayo of Asturias is listed on the Pelagius disambiguation page. Cranston Lamont 06:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Pelayo is a Visigothic, and there were 3 centuries after the Visigothic started to rule Hispania, there was no "Pelagius" like in this part of the French history (with the end of the Roman Empire it was usual to use the german name style). --SPQRes 15:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Pelayo is not Visigothic. The name is a Latin one: Pelagius. Pelayo is simply the later Castilian form. Srnec 04:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Pelagius is Greek name, "that who has will to choose", the Latin name is Pelagio.

• The Latin was by that age the "written" language (like in all Europe), and If you find a text in latin written, It is no a prove of Latin speakers. Th Roman Empire was by far death at that date (even de Visigoth were earlier in Hispania). The name of "Pelayo" is a Visigothic name, the ruling group.

• There were no Castilian in Asturias by that age, even more, Castilian was a product of the Kingdom of Asturias, and was more-less in the actual Burgos and Santander. The language of Asturias was a latin degeneration, and with the pass of time, that language mixed with Castilian-Spanish to a form of dialect (bable or asturiano - "onde ta tu pa y que ye lo que falas"). Than, you can`t say that Pelayo is a form of Castilian, or Catalán, French or Portuguese. And even more, Pelayo was no from Asturias, maybe from central Spain, or from Santander (east from Asturias).

• In the case the Pelagius is accepted, the usual accepted entry is the common name, like:

Philip II of Spain - Felipe II de España

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor - Fernando I, (born and broug up in Madrid, and it was "his name")

King Arthur - ameraudur (Imperator)/ Artorius - If he really existed, take by sure that he was a roman citizen with (maybe) celtic roots, and he fouhgt against the german conquerors (the Angles and the Saxons).

It is strange that a Visigoth was named with a Latinized Greek name, Pelagius. Weren't Visigothic elites always named with Germanic names? Unless he was part of a few -or unknown- exceptions... or unless he wasn't really from Germanic origin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.39.218.10 (talk) 11:25, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

--SPQRes 21:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Latin or vulgar Latin on its way to becoming Romance was the spoken language of Pelagius. Gothic was dead by then. Pelagius is the Latin form, Pelayo is a later hispanicisation. Nobody called him Pelayo in his lifetime. Srnec 04:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

in Asturian language the name is Pelayu, with U. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.2.241.72 (talk) 14:29, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

"bable or asturiano" isn't a mix of castillian and that romance, that romance formed the Asturleonese language, of which Asturian it's a dialect or language. You are refering to "amestáu" not asturian, which is an independent language from castillian. Fueyo221 (talk) 21:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Inscriptions

PINTAIVS PEDELICI / F(ilius) ASTVR TRANS/MONTANVS CASTEL(L)O/INTERCATIA SIGNIFER / C(o)HO(rtis) V ASTVRVM / ANNO(rum) XXX STIP(endiorum) VI[I] / H(eres) EX T(estamento) F(aciendum) C(uravit)

http://www.unicyber.org/viejo_reino/pintaius.jpg

http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/ymu/sqhm/alf/ogz/AF51.jpg

Pelagius is common academic usage

And this should be sufficient to prove it. If you believe it still should be changed, I alert you that it is controversial and you should formally request a move. Srnec (talk) 06:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Did it occur to you to try Pelayo + Asturias, which has almost three times the results? Or to run the same search on Google Scholar, where Pelayo + Asturias crushes Pelagius + Asturias with 2,780 results to 108? Or to search for historical journals on, say, EBSCO, where "Pelayo" brings up 275 hits and "Pelagius" has zero hits? Albrecht (talk) 14:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Did it occur to you that Pelayo is Spanish, so not restricting searches to English tells us nothing about English usage? Or that three times the results might no be taken as "overwhelming"? Or that I never said Pelagius was more common, only that it was common? When I repeat your GoogleScholars search for Pelayo, this time restricting it to the social sciences and humanities to reduce false positives (there are other people named Pelayo related to Asturias) and to the years after 1950 to increase reliability, I get 240 hits. Doing the same for Pelagius, I get only 38. But look closer. Only three of the first ten hits for Pelayo are about the historical king, and only one is English. Six of the Pelagius hits are, all in English. Both have a large number of false positives. I did similar searches to journals at JSTOR, PAO, Wiley, and SpringerLink, but the results were statistically insignificant (i.e. 2:1 in favour of Pelayo, with one false positive). It is hard for any usage to be overwhelming when English scholarship just has so little of note to say. Pelagius/Pelayo gets more passing mention than extended treatment. But when I rewrote this article some months ago, I relied on Collins, who uses Pelagius in (all) his books if I remember correctly. Srnec (talk) 16:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, those points did occur to me, and what's more, it appears I was a bit more diligent than Srnec in dealing with their implications.

Let's take a more nuanced look at those first ten Google Scholar results. The article in Behavior Genetics by R Piñeiro, MC Carracedo, et al is indeed a false positive. Two are Spanish-language sources. But what about the others?

1. A Consideration of Pelayo in Spanish Literature (doubtful - could mean Menendez y Pelayo, but there's no reason to assume one over the other)
2. Pelayo and his Sister: The Making of a Hero in the Spanish Neoclassic Tragedy (valid)
3. The Spanish Bourbons: The History of a Tenacious Dynasty (valid)
4. Reconquista and convivencia: Post-conquest Valencia during the Reign of Jaime I, el Conquistador (valid)
5. Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-Century Spain (valid)
6. MUSLIM AND JEWISH “OTHERNESS” IN THE SPANISH NATION-BUILDING PROCESS (1212-1614) (valid: "The most important Christian state of the northern peninsula, the small kingdom of Asturias, was founded about 718 by Pelayo, a Visigothic chieftain.")
7. The Hunt in the 'Romancero' and Other Traditional Ballads (valid)

At least six of the ten do, in fact, make reference to the historical Pelayo or representations thereof. This proportion would yield 144 valid results out of 240, more than three times the unsorted "Pelagius." (A methodical review of all 240 hits turned out 120 false positives or Spanish-language results, and the net was cast wide.) Of course, your very argument for "Pelagius" forces you to admit that the competing name, by your own search criteria, happens to be twice as common.

So what does "most common English usage" mean to you, exactly? The variant that appears in the majority of English publications, or the variant preferred by Srnec and the scholar of his choice? Albrecht (talk) 14:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

First, an admission of guilt. When I said that "only three of the first ten hits for Pelayo are about the historical king, and only one is English", I was wrong. I don't know how I made that error, but it is certainly an error. That said, I was not counting "representations [of the historical Pelayo]". The reason is simple, the naming of such "representations" is not up to historian, nor is the closeness of the representations to actual history. The representation may have little to nothing in common with the historical Pelayo. And in any case the one writing about the representation is not free to choose how to name it. There was once a dispute over the proper naming of the Macbeth of Scotland article: Anglicised (and Shakespearean) Macbeth or Gaelic Mac Bethad, increasingly common in academia? A search on Google scholar that took into account references to the character from Macbeth would hardly be fair. Shakespeare's representation is not the same as the historical king of Scotland and most references to the character will have no bearing on the historical king. If the literature is Spanish, then certainly Pelayo will be used and anyone talking about the Spanish literature in any language will use Pelayo also.

When these literary references are removed, we are left with only 4/10 hits on the first page. You see now that I cannot accept your 120 false positives out of 240 hits as accurate. (And can I ask how you determined a false positive?) Also, note that these four hits deal with the Bourbons, the reign of James the Conqueror, the twelfth century, and the period 1212–1640. Are any of these more than passing mentions? Is a passing mention relevant? Or is the variant preferred by Srnec and the scholar of his choice more telling, since that scholar has written several books (recently) dealing precisely with the time, place, and culture of Pelayo/Pelagius? Note that when I look at the Pelagius GoogleScholar search, it names as "key authors" A. Taha, J. Hillgarth, K. Wolf, J. O'Callaghan, and P Voekel. The first four of these are historians of medieval Spain. When we look at the Pelayo search, the key authors are Piñeiro, Carracedo, Izquierdo, and Casares of the first false positive, and then O'Callaghan. Notice the difference between this new search for Pelayo with terms characteristic of false positives removed, and this one under the same kind of conditions for Pelagius. We drop from 240 to 136 hits for the former (57%), and from 38 to 28 for the latter (74%). What is worse, many of the hits for Pelayo seem to be in discussions of legend, literature, and drama. But Pelagius is not much better if at all. The real conclusion that can be drawn from all this silliness? That there is a very small pool of English scholarship about Pelayo/Pelagius, the Asturian king.

Note that I have not, as you say, made an argument for Pelagius yet. I have only argued that your original assertion of "madness" was inaccurate. And you brought up "most common English usage", so why ask me what it means? To be honest, I'm not sure. Neither the form "Pelayo of Asturias" nor "Pelagius of Asturias" is the most common way to refer to this figure in English. Usually, thanks to context, he can be called just "Pelayo" or "Pelagius", but these have obvious ambiguity problems. I do not follow the MoS except in order to avoid unnecessary disputes and inconsistencies. Srnec (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Muslims

Why is there no reference to his liberating the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims, rather than just the Moors? Is this political correctness? The fact is that his battles were centered upon a movement to take back Spain from Islam and return it to Christianity. That should be made clear. I don't know why there is not one reference in this article to the words: "Islam", "Moslems", or "Muslims". Is that deliberate?
--Atikokan (talk) 02:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

He didn't liberate Spain from the Muslims. They ruled most of it for another several centuries, and were not expelled until 1492. And then there was the Morisco Revolt in 1568. Obviously, neither did he liberate it from the Moors (a more-or-less catch-all term for North Africans, generally Muslims).

There is no evidence that his battle at Covadonga (not "battles") was "centered upon a movement to take back Spain from Islam and return it to Christianity". He was a local figure and of the possible religiosity of his motives we know nothing and can only speculate. This should be made clear. Srnec (talk) 03:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Infobox

On what basis are you reverting my edits as not needed? The purpose of all infoboxes is to provide information at a glance something that this infobox does. Now, given that there are plenty of Saxon, Viking - hell, any pre-10th century - kings with the same infobox, how do you justify reverting my edits other than for the reason that "you" don't like it. 79.72.64.0 (talk) 11:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The question is, is the purpose of Wikipedia "to provide information at a glance"? I say no. So I revert your edits as not building the encyclopedia. It is the purpose of the lead paragraph to give the essentials of a subject. The infobox is a worthless distraction. It adds nothing to the article, only repeats information already mentioned in the text, and that the least important about Pelagius! Srnec (talk) 23:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you care to explain then why all the other articles have them?

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:INFOBOX
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Infobox —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.216.25 (talk) 09:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Most articles have them because of people who have nothing to add but want to do something anyway. Srnec (talk) 23:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

claimed daughter Iñiga - the page was deleted and with it the refutation, but it may crop up again

A page was just deleted which claimed that the lords of Tagle owed their possession of their family holdings to a descent from Iñiga, daughter of Pelayo, who married a knight named Sancho and who was granted lands in the mountains of Santander by his father-in-law. There are several problems with this. 1) Pelayo only has one documented daughter, Ermesenda, wife of Alfonso I. 2) Iñiga is a Basque name, and is not found in the Visigoth rump that was Asturias until the early 10th century (the first example of which I am aware, in the variant form Oneca/Onega, wife of count Diego Fernandez and mother of Mumadona Dias). 3) The name Sancho is likewise Basque, and all occurrences of which I am aware postdate the marriages of the kings of Leon to the daughters of Sancho I of Navarre. None of these Basque names are found in the west before the first Basque royal marriage, that of Alfonso III. 4) There are no records of men of lesser status during the reign of Pelayo, except for Pedro of Cantabria and his sons. The names of no mere knight survives. 5) It is uncertain what precise lands Pelayo controlled. That Pelayo even had the ability to grant the future Tagle lands cannot be shown based on our scant knowledge. 6) Even were all this to be the case, evidence doesn't survive that would allow a family holding lands in the 12th century to be proven to have been holding it 400 years before. There are no non-royal families that can be traced in the scant surviving documentation prior to the late 9th century, and their failure to use patronymics does not enable those who appear to be connected genealogically. Only the most prominent non-royals appear in the earliest chronicles that provide all our information for the earliest years of the kingdom, no minor landholders appear. In summary, this is a family legend invented to give them royal origins and ancient landholdings. There was no Iñiga, there was no Sancho, the Tagles cannot trace to within 400 years of the reign of Pelayo. Agricolae (talk) 17:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Southey's poem "Roderick the Last of the Goths"

The poet Robert Southey wrote an epic poem titled "Roderick the Last of the Goths" (1814), which deals (in poetically fictional form) with Pelagius (under the name Pelayo). The poem remains one of Southey's most acclaimed works, and played a strong role in the way the 19th century viewed the early Reconquista. Possibly this merits a mention in this article? Peterravn (talk) 16:05, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

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Previous political administration.

The reference I put is pretty reliable, it comes from a pretty large Spanish newspaper, specifically, that newspaper operates in Asturias. It talks about a revision on the creation of the kingdom of Asturias due to new archaeological finds. So it is pretty reliable. The fact that you may not understand it is a different issue. Translate it.

The dating of the remains found in El Peñón de Raíces forces us to review the creation of the Kingdom of Asturias The discovery reaffirms the theory that this political system was created from groups of power linked to the Roman era "This finding is quite renewing the vision we have of the region," defends Professor Javier Fernández Conde

Also, leave the infobox where it is, there is nothing wrong with it. That you don't like infoboxes for some reason is not a reason not to have it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brother Jerome (talk • contribs) 23:23, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

And here I thought the "previous political administration" referred to was the Visigoths! The sentence was doubly misleading, since it doesn't make clear what previous gov't is referred to and the sources does not say "previous political administration"—"groups of power linked to the Roman era" is quite a different thing. In any case, that article does not mention Pelagius. Srnec (talk) 02:22, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Visigothic or Asturian?

Is there a contradiction between "Visigothic" and "Asturian"? Could he not have been a Visigoth from Asturias? The lead does not say that he was from Toledo. His father was Fafila, his son was Fafila and his daughter was Ermosinda. This sounds pretty Visigothic.

@Roy Vinsmoke Kirschtein: In your edit summary you say, Pelagius Visigothic lineage only appeared in texts written in the Court several centuries later, while first records of the battle of Covadonga and the formation of the Kingdom of Asturias in both local and Arab texts establish his origin as Asturial, specifically, from eastern Asturias. To what are you referring? Are not the earliest narrative accounts of Pelagius' life and deeds the chronicles of Albelda and Alfonso III, written about a century and a half after his death? There are no earlier Arabic sources. Srnec (talk) 23:47, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

It has been suggested (can't cite a source, as it has been many years since I read this stuff) that there was an effort in the chronicle of Alfonso III to recast the self-image and foundation legend of the small Asturian kingdom: that it was only at that time that this local minor landholder who through a quirk of geography and intra-Muslim rivalries managed not to be overrun would be transformed into a scion and inheritor of the Visigothic royalty, with the Asturian kingdom really representing a continuation of the Visigothic realm under the same royal family, just with somewhat less territory under its control. So, the difference between Pelayo being a Visigoth from asturias, or simply a visigoth from Asturias. Agricolae (talk) 03:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)