Article writer's guide: buildings and fortifications
This month, the Bugle continues its "Article writer's guide" series detailing the nuances behind certain categories of Wikipedia articles. We'll bring you answers from some of the foremost Wikipedia writers in the areas we examine, in the hope that their advice helps you enter these areas and find success. This month we will be looking at fortifications or more generally buildings, with input from editors both inside and outside of military history. Future editions are tentatively planned for battles, ships, and vehicles. If you have a good topic for a future edition not named above, please add it on our newsletter's main talk page.
Thank you for agreeing to answer some of our questions. What draws you to Wikipedia's articles on buildings and fortifications?
Nev1: It grew out of my interest in British history. I've edited three main areas related to fortified buildings: Iron Age hillforts, Roman forts, and medieval castles; Portchester Castle and Warkworth Castle are the kind of places which really capture my imagination and want to read more about history. When I started editing, Wikipedia's coverage of these three groups was generally poor and I was quite happy to get stuck in. Castles have become my main interest and I feel that is the area which has improved most of the three, and drastically so. A group of editors interested in castles emerged, and I've been encouraged by their success. When I was writing about Roman forts and hillforts I felt like I was working in a vacuum.
Hchc2009: Like many of us, I really liked castles and forts when I was a kid, and I was further encouraged into the field on Wikipedia by Nev1 and Malleus Fatuorum, who guided me through some of the early article reviews.
The range of buildings, even in just the area of military history, is quite diverse. How did you choose an area to specialize in, or what drew you to the types of buildings you write about?
Nev1: While I began interested in three periods, as time passed I tended to focus more on castles because I found them most interesting. We know more about the people involved and each has its own story: Fortheringhay was where Mary, Queen of Scots was tried and executed; the walls of Caernarfon were made to look like the Walls of Constantinople; and Groby was demolished after its owner rebelled against King Henry II. It doesn't get boring. Although I did get sick of all the people called Henry Percy involved with Warkworth Castle.
Hchc2009: I tend to do a lot of Anglo-Norman castles, because I like the designs and the history of the period. I also try to cover castles which the public can easily go and see, and relatively cheaply - for example English Heritage sites - because I rather like the idea of kids and other visitors having really high quality resources available on-line for nothing (I'd have loved that when I was younger). I'm less keen on covering sites which charge a lot for entry, particularly if they then ban visitors from taking photographs. :(
Generally speaking, what should be covered in an article on a building? How do you structure your articles?
Hchc2009: I tend to think in terms of at least a section on narrative history - who built the fortification, why, what happened to it, what's it like now; and a section on architecture - what's the physical building, what was it once like, what does it resemble or mean? Integrated into that, I'd be looking for social and cultural commentary, ideally a plan, and some decent pictures. For some articles you'll also need a fair bit on artistic history, which is totally different ball-game again.
How much detail should be given to events that happened at a building, such as a battle?
Nev1: For many medieval sieges the primary sources don't go into much detail about what happened so that limits what you can do. As Hchc2009 says, the best approach is to follow the weighting set by secondary sources. But don't start writing an article on a fortified building thinking its entire history will be about warfare and violence. For castles at least it's worth remembering that by no means were all of them attacked and they weren't in a constant state of battle readiness. It cost money to maintain a garrison. While this wasn't so much an issue for Roman forts, I can't think of any off the top of my head which were attacked.
Hchc2009: My usual sense is that we should usually be guided with the weighting in the better secondary sources; doing Oxford without Matilda's escape, or Bedford without the siege of 1224 wouldn't be appropriate or fun, for example. Equally, we shouldn't forget that in an article on a building, the building's the star of the show - the battle can always have its own article. I'd strongly agree with Nev1 about the social and aspects of fortifications: all too often we write about a castle, for example, forgetting the huge deer park built right next to it for the use of the owner.
What kinds of sources do you recommend using?
Hchc2009: The best you can acquire. Seriously, in any form of research, you can't beat good sources. There are around five or six excellent modern texts on English castles, for example, any one of which would probably help, but the more you can study, read and dig about in, the better your work will be. For in depth writing, I'd usually recommend having a handful of good general studies to hand, one or two older narrative histories, and a monograph/guide book or two. But there are plenty of articles which could be easily improved with just a single introductory volume and a bit of systematic editing.
Have you found it easy to obtain online sources?
Nev1: For small sites or ones where little is known, you could probably get away write writing a reasonable article from online sources; in my experience castles are better represented than either Iron Age or Roman sites. When you move onto the subject of major sites or ones which have been well researched you may find snippets online but going to the library is a must.
Biases exist in many forms, even on such concrete topics as buildings. How have you dealt with biases in sources?
Nev1: I find that with individual sites one doesn't always need to explain the big arguments affecting the study of that type of building. If I tried to explain in every castle article that from the 1990s onwards castles have been increasingly seen as symbols of power I'd go mad and the readers would leave from boredom. The most controversial issue is usually when a castle was founded; in which case it's usually easiest to explain to the reader that it's uncertain. An author's own interests can influence how they write; for instance the official guide on Rochester Castle spent about two pages on the post-medieval history of the place because the author wasn't interested in it. In these situations, the best thing you can do is to have as many sources as possible to check if there are any gaps.
Hchc2009: A common one is that authors of monographs typically really like the building - that's why they've written the piece; alternatively, their employer really wants you to come and see it. Few people want to write "This is the most boring castle in England...", or "Rather like every other stone ruin you'll have seen..." - it's always "an architectural gem", the "finest stone wall in Europe" or such like! With any source, you need to consider why the material was written and factor that in accordingly. The other factor to consider is when a piece was written: our understanding of fortifications has changed hugely in the last thirty years, and an older source will need to be married with newer interpretations if its still going to be reliable.
How do you deal with with language barriers in both the subject and the sources about it (e.g. a non-English source)?
Nev1: Anything other than English is a mystery to me, but for sites in Britain that's not an issue. Major sites such as Krak des Chevaliers and Château Gaillard have enough written on them in English so it's not an issue. As you move away from the best known sites it becomes more of a problem. Because the areas I've highlighted span great areas the study of them is very much a multi-lingual exercise. Some journals have articles in several languages, and it seems many researchers are multi-lingual which helps in the diffusion of information if you only speak English.
Hchc2009: In my case, slowly. As Nev says, luckily for many British castles you'll get away with just English and a tolerance for the odd Latin phrase; there's a surprisingly amount of good French monographs translated in English too. But for many less prominent European sites, or any cross-thematic pieces - e.g. on keeps - you'll probably need at least some French or German eventually. This can be a headache - don't get me started on the 19th century French in the Bastille article - but it does get easier with practice. And there are always people who can help, even translating obscure Mandarin Chinese terms on battlements, as I found out last year.
What is the most common issue you have with a building article at any formal review process?
Nev1: Usually it's the quality of my writing. Occasionally there are gaps in knowledge which reviewers notice, but sometimes the primary sources just don't have that much to say. In those situations the reviewers have been very understanding when I've said "the sources simply don't have anything more to say".
Hchc2009: We don't get as many articles as I'd like at review, but issues I've noted in the past include the challenges of turning partial scraps of historical information into a fluid narrative in an article, and an over-reliance on a single source of information.
About The Bugle
First published in 2006, the Bugle is the monthly newsletter of the English Wikipedia's Military history WikiProject.
