Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (manuscript names)

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[edit] Proposal for convention for manuscript names

The recent listing of British Library, Add. MS 5111. 7th century Gospel Book fragment on VfD has shown a need for a Wikipedia naming convention for manuscripts. This would only be needed for manuscripts that do not have "common" names (e.g. Book of Kells). My initial thought was that institutional shelf numbers often act as names for manuscripts, and so could be used in much the same way that a binomial name is used for organisms. In the first article I created for a manuscript without a name (Durham Cathedral Library A. II. 10. Gospel Book Fragment) I added the descriptive phrase "Gospel Book Fragment" almost as an afterthought. I have followed this convention ever since. However, after the MS 5111 article was listed on VfD, Warofdreams changed the name of the article to 7th century Gospel Book fragment (British Library, Add. MS 5111) saying the new name " is more user-friendly. It describes the object first, then gives the catalogue number to disambiguate it from other 7th century Gospel Book fragments." Interestingly, I received a copy today via Interlibrary Loan of Kurt Weitzmann's, Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination which names this manuscript as "The London Canon Tables". So I have changed the name of the article…again. However the issue of naming unnamed manuscripts remains. WarofDreams' system has the advantage of making the article title read much as it would in a textbook. One possible drawback is that for some manuscripts the title could be misleading; for example an article entitled Simeon Metaphrastes' Lives of Saints. (British Library, Add. MS 11870 might cause a reader to conclude that the only copy of Simeon is MS 11870, which may or may not be true. I think, however, that that problem can be worked around. All of that said, I would like to propose the following:

  • If a manuscript has an English name, the manuscript's article should be under that name. (See below for exception)
  • Manuscript names in other languages should be translated into English, unless the manuscript is widely known in English scholarship under a name in another language. (e.g. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Vergilius Vaticanus)
  • If a manuscript has multiple names, the most common should be used (e.g. Book of Kells). If it cannot be determined which name is most common, the name used by the owner of the manuscript should be used. (e.g. Lichfield Gospels).
  • If there is no English name and one can be constructed that will unambiguously refer to the manuscript, then that name may be used. This is most useful for manuscripts that are the only one of its type within a particular collection. A name can be constructed by combining the name of the city or town, institution, or collection with the type of manuscript (e.g. Ranworth Antiphoner)
  • If none of the above apply an article name should be constructed using the following formula:
    • Manuscript Description (City, Institution, Shelf Number)
      • Only the information that is necessary to identify the manuscript should be used within the parentheses. In practice this would mean that the name of the city could often be left out. Dsmdgold 10:17, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • This looks like an excellent convention. I entirely agree that the last form should be used only if there is no accepted name and no unambiguously constructable name. Warofdreams 11:38, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • This seems very sensible, the most user-friendly approach. I'd add that there should always be a redirect from a shelf number, e.g. entering "British Library, Add. MS 11870" should automatically redirect to Simeon Metaphrastes' Lives of Saints. (British Library, Add. MS 11870. Then we won't lose any of our readers. --Wetman 16:13, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Dsmgold you also created List of Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts to nicely tie all the manuscripts together (a great resource BTW which needs more incoming links so more people find it). The nameing convention should logically follow inside the article. Currently, that is not the case, so I wonder if this new nameing pattern will fit in well with a long list, or be confusing? Or is the plan to update and change? Or, to keep the separate nameing conventions, one for article names and one for listing? Just some thoughts. --Stbalbach 21:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the kind words. And yes, the (mostly red) links on the list should be formatted according to whatever naming convention is finally accepted. Next week sometime, if the response to my proposal is positive, I will probably start reformatting the links. As for the list itself, I will continue the current format: sorted by century an within each century sorted alphabetically by city, institution, and shelf number, followed by the link.Dsmdgold 00:57, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Duc de Berry manuscript

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is used as an example in this guideline. Shouldn't that be Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry, per:

--Francis Schonken 22:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Although the manuscript is called "Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry" in French in English it is called the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry", or simply the "Très Riches Heures". The French article did not follow the rest of the name into English. The French, as I undesrstand it, use different conventions for the capitalizaton of titles of works of art. The link you provided, supports this. Although the title of the page uses French, throughou the rest of the page he refers to it as "the Très Riches Heures". Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)#Titles of works is not applicable, as this object doesn't have an "actual title", it has conventional names. Dsmdgold 14:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the info! Sorry, I should've seen the obvious, that that was a "franglais" webpage.
Reason why I asked, was that I proposed elsewhere to start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books), and that for that endeavour I wanted to use the Duc de Berry manuscript as example for explaining the difference between the new books NC guideline, and the already existing manuscripts NC guideline (I wanted to be absolutely sure the example was "stable", and would not change in near future).
BTW, someone created the redirect from my proposed new pagename, but as a double redirect - I'll do some double redirects cleanup now. --Francis Schonken 16:03, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
No problem. I don't see the name changing anytime soon. Dsmdgold 18:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
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