Talk:Ælfric of Eynsham

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Anglo-Saxon KingdomsWikipedia:WikiProject Anglo-Saxon KingdomsTemplate:WikiProject Anglo-Saxon KingdomsAnglo-Saxon Kingdoms articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Biography This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles Saints Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Saints, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Saints and other individuals commemorated in Christian liturgical calendars on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SaintsWikipedia:WikiProject SaintsTemplate:WikiProject SaintsSaints articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Middle Ages Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Middle Ages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Middle Ages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Middle AgesWikipedia:WikiProject Middle AgesTemplate:WikiProject Middle AgesMiddle Ages articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Article was originally at "Aefric", however all but the first reference to his name calls him "Aelfric", and another poster has commented that "Aefric" is incorrect. Moved article to "Aelfric" The Anome

...which is how most readers would look for him. Fortunately, a redirect will bring the normal reader here, to this owlishly renamed entry heading. I look forward to seeing OEconomy as an entry heading... --Wetman 12:57, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The page has now been moved from AElfric to Ælfric. Links from Aefric, Aelfric and AElfric have been updated/created. Btw. A and E are NEVER both capitalized in an otherwise lowercase word unless combined in a ligature (Æ)!!! Aelfric, not AElfric, is the correct title if the ligature is not used/not available. --Krun 22:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've read some of Ælfric's works, but was unfamiliar with the name Ælfric Grammaticus and the combination of the Old English Ælfric with the Latin Grammaticus seems jarring. I decided to check what he's called in some authoritative sources.

In the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (a source of this article) we find:

ÆLFRIC, called the "Grammarian" (c. 955-1020?)...

In the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) the entry is:

Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham Also known as "the Grammarian"...

In the Library of Congress catalog, the author entry is:

Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham.

In the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England he is listed as:

Ælfric 94 (Male): Abbot of Eynsham, 1005-c.1010; author....

(The number 94 means he's 94th of the 115 Ælfrics in the database)

It seems that Ælfric Grammaticus is not a widely accepted form of his name, and either Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham or Aelfric of Eynsham would be preferred titles for this article. In other articles it is common to refer to an Abbot as "'Person' of 'Place'" (see, for example, the entries for the Abbots of Iona.

Following that model, Ælfric of Eynsham seems to be the preferred name for this article. Any comments? --SteveMcCluskey 23:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to the research, I checked the British Library catalogue and found contradictory results. The majority of the 111 entries including the world Ælfric list him as AELFRIC, Grammaticus, Abbot of Eynsham. However, the modern entries tend to drop the grammaticus; of the thirteen most recent entries (since 1976); 8 give the form Aelfric; 2 give Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham; and 3 relate to Aelfric in different ways.

Since Aelfric Grammaticus was not used by the British Library cataloguers since they cagalogued a 1972 publication. It looks as if that form, like mediæval, is obsolescent and does not belong in a modern encyclopedia. --SteveMcCluskey 17:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Digging a bit further in the British Library web page I found the following authoritative statement (the BL follows the LOC here). They apparently only encode the name entries with ASCII rather than Unicode, so the Æ ligature is represented there as Ae. I take this as pretty reliable evidence that his article should be headed either Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham or Ælfric of Eynsham.

Cross-references - All Names - Aelfric, The Grammarian, Abbot of Eynsham

System number 000177342

Heading Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Aelfric, Grammaticus, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Aelfric, The Grammarian, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury

Seen from Elfrike, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Älfrik, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Aelfrik, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Alfric, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Alfricus, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Elfric, Abbot of Eynsham

Seen from Aelfricus, Abbot of Eynsham

Source Data Found Author’s A Saxon treatise concerning the old and new Testament ... 1623.

Source Data Found The Old English version of the Heptateuch, 1990:p. vii (Älfrik) p. 13 (Aelfrik) p. 15 (Abbot Elfrike)

Source Data Found BM cat.(hdg.: Aelfric, Grammaticus, Abbot of Eynsham; variant: Alfric; ref.: Alfricus)

Source Data Found NUC pre-56(hdg.: Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham; usage: Aelfric, Elfric, Elfrike, Aelfricus; Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury)

Source Data Found DNB(Ælfric, abbot, called Grammaticus, fl. 1006; celebrated author and translator; abbot of Ensham; no ground for identifying him as a bishop or archbishop; pupil of Æthelwold; writings include: Homilies; Treatise on the old and new testaments; Heptateuchus; Life of St. Æthelwold; Excerpts from St. Æthelwold’s Rule of St. Benedict; Canons; Quando dividis Chrisma; Latin grammar and glossary; Colloquium; and De temporibus anni)

--SteveMcCluskey 17:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I moved this article to Ælfric Grammaticus. However, I must confess that this was simply because that was the name given in the existing article (from EB 1911). My interest is really in the archbishop from whom he required disambiguation. Later, I added alternative names from more modern sources and one of these is probably to be preferred. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England gives Ælfric of Eynsham as his main article (although he is confusingly referred to as Ælfric of Cerne in other articles). A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain gives Ælfric the Homilist. Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire gives Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham. I vote for the descriptive, Ælfric of Eynsham. As this seems to be common usage, it's better than the titular version. Walgamanus 20:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the answer; I see agreement here. I'll change him to Ælfric of Eynsham once I have a few hours to spend tidying up the links. --SteveMcCluskey 00:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The link to Aethelmaer does not come out at Aethelmaer the Stout (se Greatta}, son of Aethelweard the Historian, but as Bishop Aethelmaer the brother of Stigand. Some mistake surely ? Streona (talk) 01:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When I found this article, it included this statement: "Ælfric denied the immaculate birth of the Virgin (Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii.466)" This seems to be based on a common misunderstanding of what the Immaculate Conception (not immaculate birth) of the Virgin means - it means that she was conceived without Original Sin, not that she, like Jesus, had a virginal conception. Thorpe's translation of the cited passage says:

"What shall we say of the birth-tide of Mary, save that she was begotten by father and by mother as other persons, and was born on the day that we call the eighth of September? Her father was named Joachim, and her mother Anna, pious persons according to the old law; but we will not write further concerning them, lest we fall into any error."

This clearly says nothing about whether or not she was born with original sin, but does state that she was conceived through sexual union. Therefore, I removed the statement. Steorra (talk) 18:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The title used makes this article very difficult for other editors to wikify (link their pages into). Where do I find the Saxon AE on my keyboard? I don't have the time or the inclination to waste time working out how to do this, so I am forced to cut and paste the word from this site directly into my page requiring a link. That is absurd. I fully support precision in getting the facts right, but this should be within the article - the title serves a broader purpose, as a handle for picking up this article. Pedantry must feature strongly within all Wikipedia articles, hooray to that, but not surely in the titles where it interferes with practicality. I suggest a new title of "Aelfric" - what's wrong with that? The title of the article on Socrates is not spelled in classical Greek letters, so why does this have to be spelled in Quasi-Saxon? (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 09:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC))[reply]

That's a good question, but it turns out you can type Aelfric of Eynsham, which redirects to Ælfric of Eynsham. BTW, if you're a US PC user, you can just set your keyboard to the US International keyboard and a whole range of options open to you. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:16, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Created with DNB text from a redlink here, just to get it linked in and disambiguated [i hope] Cygnis insignis (talk) 01:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Ælfric of Eynsham. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110629040711/http://individual.utoronto.ca/michaelelliot/manuscripts/texts/transcriptions/aelfricW1L.pdf to http://individual.utoronto.ca/michaelelliot/manuscripts/texts/transcriptions/aelfricW1L.pdf
• Added {{dead link}} tag to http://individual.utoronto.ca/michaelelliot/manuscripts/texts/transcriptions/aelfricW2L.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:11, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]