Talk:Descent from antiquity

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[edit] Hilde, sprious ancestress of legendary Ivarr Vidfami

copied following:

(Jared Linn Olar wrote) Subject: Re: gateway descents from Kings of Vandals, via Kings of Burgundy, via Volsungs of Allemania, Cambresis, & Denmark Date: 18 Jun 2004 10:05:37 -0700 References:

david hughes wrote: > gateway descents from Kings of Vandals, via Kings of Burgundy, via > Volsungs of Allemania, Cambresis, & Denmark > ------------------------------------------------------------- > 10. Hilderic, Vandal-King 523-530 deposed, d533 > issue: > a. Gormund, Byzantine Governor of North Africa 534-543, father of > Hilde, wife of Valdar "The Dane" > b. Hilde, wife of Frode VII, King of Denmark

"Gormund" is mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain" as a king of Germans in Africa who led an invasion of Ireland and Britain during the reign of a Briton king named Careticus (Ceretic) in the latter half of the 500s A.D. Careticus supposedly was successful in beating back with terrible invasion, though historical records don't mention anything of it. I believe Geoffrey got the story of Gormund from someone -- I don't think it was original with Geofrrey, but I don't know where he might have heard it. In any event, I'm aware of no reason to believe Gormund ever existed, let alone that he was a son of Hilderic, King of the Vandals.

As for Hilde, daughter of Hilderic, I've seen that spurious filiation several times. It's based on a medieval Icelandic legendary pedigree of Ivar Vidfadmi, a legendary conquering king of Scania, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Northumbria who, again, may not have existed. The pedigree first appears, I believe, in certain manuscripts of the Hervarar Saga ok Heithreks Konungs. Ivar was supposedly descended from a princess named Hild, daughter of Heidrik (Heithrekr) Ulfham, King of Reidgothaland, traditionally identified as Jutland and/or Mecklenburg. However, I've not yet found any early texts that identify Hild's husband as Frode -- Hervarar Saga says she married a Danish king named Valdar, but other Old Icelandic sources show Valdar as an apparent descendant, not husband, of Hild.

Since the area of Heidrik's kingdom was associated with both the German Vandals and the Slavic Wends, and since some later writers came up with a false theory that the Vandals and the Wends were the same people, someone came up with the idea that Heidrik Ulfham was a legendary memory of the historical Vandal king Hilderic, and thus invented a descent from the Vandal kings through the legendary kings of Denmark and Sweden. However, there is simply no proof that Heidrik Ulfham was Hilderic -- the names might seem similar, but just as the Frankish royal name Hilderic is found in Old Icelandic texts as Hjalprekr, so we should expect a Vandal king named Hilderic to be mentioned in Old Icelandic texts as Hjaldrekr, or something like that, not Heithrekr. Again, the legends of Heidrik Ulfham never associate him with Africa, only with Northern Europe -- yet it was well known throughout Europe, even Scandinavia, that the Vandals had migrated to North Africa. One would expect some trace of that in the legends of Heidrek Ulfham if it were true that he was based on the historical Hilderic the Vandal.

At your service,

Jared L. Olar

Jared has given an extremely clear accont of why this socalled "Danish route" is not eligible for mention here, unless you wish to start a section on "widely repeated but delusional descents". Didn't the words "spurious filiation" ring any kind of a bell?? --Chris Bennett 02:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

"Much of the published work on this topic is as fantastical as any medieval genealogy and is to be avoided, or used with great caution."

This is unencyclopedic and blatantly POV (in self-contradiction regarding my recent edit summary). An encyclopedia article should simply report that relevant, yet dubious, works are unreliable for serious scholarship, rather than admonish readers from referring to them and dismiss them as "fantastical". My version, "Much of the published work on this topic is widely regarded as no more reliable than medieval genealogical records," unlike the above one, is something one might actually read in an encyclopedia. --Jugbo 20:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted to the original version pending resolution of this issue. Please leave it alone until we conclude this discussion.

The main problem with your edit is not the wording, it's your proposal to reposition it. In essence, the original notice is a consumer alert. It was made specifically with respect to Stuart's work, and was deliberately intended to distinguish it from the other works in the bibliography as a book to be avoided. By moving the statement to the beginning you have lumped the entire bibliography under the notice. This is flatly wrong, the cited works are not at all equivalent in their scholarship.

Let me explain why the notice is where it is. This field is very popular with amateur researchers seeking to push their ancestry back as far as it will go. Many of them take anything they read at face value if it appears to allow them to add another generation or 50 to their database. In the amateur genealogical community, Stuart's book is by far the most widely known and used source claiming to provide DFA-type descents. That makes it not only relevant to the article but also very difficult to leave out of the bibliography. But it is also an exceptionally bad piece of pseudo-scholarship. If you took a moment to compare it to, say, Settipani's Nos ancetres de l'antiquite, or Wagner's essay, which are the two items cited that are closest in comparable scope, you would see immediately that that statement is not POV, it's an objective assessment of academic quality.

Normally, bibliographic references are implicit recommendations that the cited sources have material allowing you to learn more about the article in question. In the case of Stuart's book, the only ethical recommendation is to avoid this work like the plague. There is no way to do that except by making an explicit statement to that effect.

As to editorial philosophy, there is a difference between an informed assessment and POV. The first is giving guidance, the second is promoting a particular view point. Because many genealogical researchers come to this topic through an interest in their own family trees rather than historical standards of research, and because the field is full of bad literature, it's entirely appropriate that the bibliography in this article should be explicit in giving guidance.

As to wording, I wouldn't have any problem with something like: "Much of the published work on this topic is no more reliable than medieval genealogies, and should be used cautiously. A well-known example is:" (Not "medieval genealogical records" as you suggest. Those are wills, charters etc -- source documents which, if they are contemporary, are about as reliable as you can get.) While, in the spirit of guidance, I would prefer "Useful material" in introducing the discussion lists, I also don't have a problem with "Additional material" if it really matters to you.

Hope that clarifies the objectives. --Chris Bennett 22:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't understand that the notice regarded only Stuart's book. It struck me as biased and unencyclopedic, so judging by it's quality I assumed it was carelessly injected by a petulant hardass, and attempted to improve the section by re-wording it and moving it to the top. My primary problem was the stuffy tone of the warning, and so I tried to make it more encyclopedic.

"As to wording, I wouldn't have any problem with something like: "Much of the published work on this topic is no more reliable than medieval genealogies, and should be used cautiously. A well-known example is:"

Good, then. That's much better. --Jugbo 20:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)