Talk:Inchkeith

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[edit] References to Old and New Edinburgh and Gazetteer for Scotland

If you remove references to either of the above, please provide some reasonable justification (with verifiable references) to backup your edits, or preferably discuss them here first. Removing content referenced against works such as these without adequately proving mistakes in the content of the works themselves is either original research, or poor encyclopedic practice. Thanks! njan 20:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Your additions are so nonsensical that I don't even feel it is worthy of response. Having said that, I already responded here. Please please, on behalf of the community of the human race, edit articles you are competent to edit. You have no idea how stupid the additions you're trying to enforce look. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you find them stupid. The quickest way to deal with someone trying to have a reasonable discussion with you about a subject is to discuss reasonably, not resort to patronising remarks and ad hominems. You have now started hinting you might be prepared to discuss this reasonably, and this is great. This is wasting my time just as much as it's wasting yours. All I'd like to see is some evidence that this source isn't accurate which isn't you saying it's inaccurate. This is consistent with the way wikipedia operates and, generally, with the way that sensible collaboration on well-sourced material works. If your opinions are so entrenched as to provoke such a strong response, there must be some evidence behind them. Please provide it. This is very basic academic scrutiny and best wikipedia practice, and is not at all unreasonable. njan 22:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason for this material being removed. Has Deacon of Pndapetzim provided one? I don't feel like reading through the reams of comments and petty bickering.. I see at least two others trying to adhere to the wikipedian standard of neutrality whilst one person tries to remove material he just seems not to like.. 80.192.5.124 18:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Njan, Deacon is correct in advising you that the information you are adding to the Inchkeith article is factually wrong. The bits about Robert de Keith being granted the lands of Inchkeith from Malcolm II is based on Hector Boece Chronicles written five centuries after the supposed event. Boece is notorious for inaccuracies and invention and this is another case. This story is repeated all over the internet (mostly in clan Keith sites). In 1010, a Robert de Keith simply could not exist. A Caithness chieftain would have been a Pict/Gael and would not have had a norman name. The Gazetteer is simply repeating this nonsense. The first mention of any one owning the Keith lands in Lothian is of one Hervey who witnesses a charter of King David I. The first mention of a de Keith is Hervey's son - also Hervey. Hervey is very probably one of David's norman implants. Rgds, --Bill Reid | Talk 17:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input! :) He may well be. I haven't yet seen any commentary of precisely the sort you've just given in an attributable, referencable form. That's really all I'd like to see. As Deacon's taken great pains to point out, I'm not an expert in this subject area - which is precisely why I'm trying to apply an equal weighting to each reference source that I can see which appears to be well-regarded.

If someone (anyone!) can show me, in any substantive way, that this particular reference source is consistently inaccurate to the point at which these references are utterly useless, great - that's exactly what I'm after - facts (or at least, some approximation of them). What I've been faced with so far has been someone who tells me material is wrong and refuses to give any better reason for their assertions than what really approximates to "Because I say so, and I know more about this than you - leave this alone and stop being ridiculous, peon".

In the absence of anything factual and in the presence of someone who appears to be fairly impatient and unreasonable, I have no material to work with and very little incentive to place any faith in the other party's willingness to build consensus and improve articles. I'm having to send many, many messages and perform many, many changes to the article just in order to enter into a dialogue, and even at this point it seems like I'm only being talked to because it seems like the other party can't just shout me down! I've tried to build consensus and discuss this like a reasonable adult all along, and I hope I've come off this way. :) njan 22:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

James Taylor, The Great Historic Families of Scotland, London: J S Virtue & Co, page 99 states

The origin of the Keiths is hid amid the mists of antiquity, and the stories told by the early chroniclers respecting their descent from the German tribe of the 'Catti,' who were driven from their own country and took refuge in Caithness, are absurd fictions. All that is known with certainty on the subject is, that in the reign of David I., when Norman, Saxon, Flemish, and Scandinavian settlers in great numbers took up their residence in Scotland, a part of the district of Keith, in East Lothian, was possessed by a baron named HERVEIUS, who witnessed the charter by which King David granted Annandale to Robert de Brus. His estate received from him the designation of Keith Hervei, and afterwards of Keith Marischal. Herveus de Keith, the son of this baron, held the office of King's Marischal under Malcolm IV. and William I., which from this time became hereditary in the family.

Hope this is helpful. Rgds --Bill Reid | Talk 09:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

This looks like it might be good information, and certainly something worthy of being referenced on Clan Keith - but citing this, whilst it may assist in the issue of this one particular citation, sidesteps the broader issue; what makes this reference source right and the Gazeteer wrong? On what basis do you assess one as correct, but the other, and I quote, "material i know to be false, or nothing more than ill-informed Victorian speculation"? njan 15:02, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, njan, you either believe what later published historians say or you don't. The Gazetteer piece is unattributed and I would suspect that the mention is a lift from some spurious web-site or, as I said, from the Boece translation. Funnily enough, if you click on the expanded description on the tab on the RHS there is no mention of this Robert De Keith. The Boece translation by Hollinshed I quote below:

amus perceiving the discomfiture to light upon his side, with a small company about him, thought to have escaped by flight unto the next mountains, but being pursued of his enemies he was slain by them ere he was got two miles from the place of the battle. The place where he was slain is named after him unto this day, and called Camestone, where is an obelisk set up in memory of the thing, with his picture engraved therein, and likewise of those that slew him. The principal slayer of Camus was one Keith.

So you either believe the originator of this story - one whose writings are not the most accurate - or you take the word of historians who have delved into the facts of the issue, carried out original research, and sighted original documentation. I certainly choose the latter. I have no doubt in my mind that the Gazetteer is wrong and has not looked at the evidence either directly or indirectly. If I were you I would contact them and ask them their source. Anyway, thats my two cents worth, Rgds, --Bill Reid | Talk 19:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

This has been removed (again). There isn't consensus here (although a majority of users seem to take the view that the content should be retained). The material is referenced, and the references have been checked. Unless you're prepared to specifically explain why this source is disqualified, please don't revert this any more, especially without discussing it here. Thanks! njan 23:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Finding the source of the material in an 1890-ish Gazetteer is going to be impossible. The piece on the Earls Marischal in The Scots Peerage, volume 6, starts with the "Hervey" Bill already mentioned. There's no remotely credible evidence for the improbably named "Robert de Keith". Where does this majority of editors who think the material should be retained here come from? Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! I'm very much under the impression that the Gazetteer itself is a source. It has yet to be explained adequately why this reference source on its own doesn't constitute a reliable source, nor has any attempt been made in the text of the article to clarify what the sourced material itself means, if it can't be taken at face value.

If you or anyone else would like to explain this, or clarify this in the article (or even in the article on the source itself), that'd be great. I'm obviously not the only person who takes this view, so I don't see that it can be that outlandish.

I've reverted edits to this page (again) because the referenced material has been wiped out with no attempt having been made to assuage the doubts of other wikipedians and build some consensus here. Comments, as always, on User:Deacon of Pndapetzim's talk page here njan 13:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Yet again, this has been reverted, and yet again with little concern for the facts, or the views of other editors. Commented on the user's talk page, again. njan 13:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I did. Honestly, I wouldn't really care what source it was in; I know the primary sources and the scholarship, and the text in question is just nonsense. Moreover, making it out to be controversial is misleading, as no-one today would give it enough credit to be discussed. Myth seems to have been perpetuated by Boece, according to Bill; many such myths flourished in late medieval/early modern Scotland (e.g. Sholto Douglas) there are no Normans in Scotland in the reign of Mael Coluim II, no reason to know that he had them (certainly not ... LOL ... in Caithness!!!!), and of course Scottish locational appelations such as de X are virtually unknown until the turn of the 12th to 13th centuries, long time after Máel Coluim II. Inserting this text is equivalent to inserting text claiming a tertiary sources claims that Inchkeith is a grounded Martian spaceship; silly even responding to it, but hey I even went and wrote a proper etymology of the name for you and you still complain on my user talkpage! Anyways, the Gazetteer is a tertiary source, and does not even in wikipedia guidelines count as reliable, certainly not for the matter it covers; if you wish to keep this view, you need to use place-name studies or 11th century Scottish history by scholars. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear Njan, like yourself I am not an historian and can only approach the issue from the position of an interested amateur. From this perspective two unresolved questions seem pertinent. The first is that whilst you are correct in stating that you have a source, this doesn't mean a lot if the source is suspect. Given that three historians have now said that the idea of a 'Robert de Keith' at the date mentioned is not credible, how do you justify the idea with reference to the known facts about Norman influence in Scotland? Secondly, you refer to the 'views of other editors' being ignored. I am not sure who you mean. The current consensus would seem to be against retaining the material in question. Ben MacDui (Talk) 17:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Old and New Edinburgh book doesn't mention de Keith only a Robert. Grant doesn't provide a source but is almost certainly regurgitating the Boece fable. --Bill Reid | Talk 13:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how the recent reversion by Deacon of Pndapetzim relates to this discussion - it seems to remove a large superset of the disputed material. I removed just the material that it appears is in dispute. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.210.119 (talk) 06:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Surviving stuff I'm not supposed to call "trash"

Francis Hindes Groome, in his Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, notes that Ptolemy, in the 2nd Century AD refers to "Alauna, a town of the Otadeni" on Inchkeith. He further mentions that "This he further identifies with Bede's insular city of Giudi, which in 650 Osuiu, King of Northumbria, was forced by Penda, the pagan Mercian king, to ransom with all the riches in it and the neighbouring region". The earliest settlement on Inchkeith greatly predates the name, therefore.

Nothing connects the unconnected urbs Giudi with Inchkeith. If anything is certain about that place then it's that it wasn't on Inchkeith. See upcoming article on this topic by Fraser.

Between 679 and 704, St Adomnan, the abbot of Iona founded a "school of the prophets" on the island. He met St Serf here, newly arrived from Rome. Iona also had strong ties with Inchcolm, which was named after St Columba – whose biographer was St Adomnan.

Article has no source for this, but it doesn't matter, as this is pseudo-historical nonsense based loosely on anachronisms of the 12th century Life of St Serf.

This stuff also contradicts the only decent part of the section, that nothing is known of the island until much later. I attempted to remove this stuff, but the anon wishes to retain it. Rather than get into an immediate "edit war" with it, I've just left a few relevant tags. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)