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Talk:Stephen, King of England/GA1

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Latest comment: 13 years ago by Hchc2009 in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Latest comment: 13 years ago27 comments2 people in discussion
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Will get to work on this; looks great though!
Reviewer: Lampman (talk) 19:41, 26 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

External links fine, a certain number of dablinks: [1] Lampman (talk) 19:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

I think all the DABs are now fixed. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:53, 1 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Early life

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  • "William probably had mental difficulties..." - don't we all? The wording is a bit vague; contemporaries would probably use the word "idiot", though that wouldn't go down too well today. Perhaps "mental retardation" is better, but according to Davies, the case is not quite so clear-cut?
  • "Honour of Lancaster" - in lack of a better link, you might want to link this to Lancaster Castle, which was the centre of the honour.
  • "still a potential claimant to the English throne" - the word "still" is a bit misplaced; this has not been mentioned earlier. All we've been told is that he was a contender for the Duchy of Normandy.
  • "hereditary succession, in which the eldest child would inherit a title, was becoming more popular." - I have a couple of issues with this statement. First of all, it's not hereditary succession which is the new thing, but the principle of primogeniture. Secondly, by "primogeniture" is implicitly meant "male primogeniture", so that it is the eldest (legitimate) male child who inherits, not simply the eldest child. I would suggest using the word primogeniture and wikilinking it, unless I am missing something here?
  • "the most important part" - again we have the issue of primogeniture. The essence of inheritance by primogeniture was that the patrimony should pass intact from one generation to the other. Land the lord had acquired during his lifetime, however, through marriage or conquest, he was free to dispose of as he chose. Hence it was not "the most important part" that passed to the eldest son (though this was normally the case), but the patrimony. This is exactly the reason why the Conqueror could pass the largest part of his inheritance to his younger son William, while Robert was left with a much smaller part of the inheritance. Lampman (talk) 00:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • I was abbreviating too much I think; the patrimony, from my reading, was usually considered the most important, for exactly the reasons you describe. I've expanded a bit in the text - see what you think. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Early reign

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  • Note 6: could you say a bit more in the note about the nature of the historiographical debate? (Carpenter doesn't seem to quite buy the harmonious version.)
  • "a useful balance to Angevin power in the region" - which region are you talking about here?
  • "Stephen's personal qualities as a military leader..." - this sentence seems a little bit out of place; it doesn't have much relevance to what goes directly before it.

Cheers! - will work through these ones in a little bit. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:57, 28 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Civil war

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  • "Stephen had disliked the baron for several years..." - this sentence is a bit long; it should probably be split up.
  • "Geoffrey's rebellion continued until September 1144..." - you should make it clear that you're talking about de Mandeville, since the last paragraph was about Geoffrey of Anjou.
  • "the Anarchy" - you say later that this phrase was coined by Round; maybe you should mention this briefly in a footnote also here (with a "see below").

Legacy

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  • Was not Round Stubbs' student? Shouldn't this be mentioned?

Ancestors

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  • It would be better if this was collapsed by default, so that the readers can decide themselves if they want to see this rather large graphical element.

General

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  • You should provide links also to modern historians, at least those with articles (Davis and Carpenter, for instance). You could do this the first time they're mentioned in the text, and then again in the bibliography section. Lampman (talk) 10:35, 29 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Looks excellent; I'm happy to promote it! If I was a bit tough, it's because I expect you'll move on to an FA nomination pretty soon. If you do, you should probably add ALT texts to the images. Also, be a bit more careful with the difference between hyphens and dashes; there are some sticklers for that on FAR (I think I got all of these while copyediting). In any case, a great article, and even more impressive since you're a relative newcomer to Wikipedia. You show a better understanding of the project than a lot of editors who have been around for years. Lampman (talk) 19:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

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