Talk:Bonifatius

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On 11 July 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved from Bonifacius to Bonifatius. The result of the discussion was moved.

Untitled[edit]

That 5th century title was patricius and it was military in nature, not directly "patrician." --Wetman 01:39, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am aware of both of those facts. However, in the rest of the article, Anglicizations are used (emperor instead of Augustus, count instead of Comes, Boniface instead of Bonifacius), so I figured no one would mind if I used patrician instead of patricius. Also, because I was referring to the specific title instead of the general social class, I capitlized the word. Kuralyov 21:02, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I moved it to Bonifacius because that's what both OCD and EB use. "Count" as an anglicization has fallen out of favor in recent years, at least partly because it has very misleading connotations to English speakers. Stan 07:39, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This account of Boniface's life fail to explain that his alleged invitation to the Vandals to enter North Africa is entirely based on Procopius, who was repeating the prejudices of his time. This article needs to include dissident opinions -- such as Stewart Oost's -- who point out how the people of the time perceived historical forces led them to make Boniface the scapegoat for this disasterous event. Although people thrust into positions of leadership can make unbelievably stupid & destructive decisions (yes, I am thinking of one contemporary example), NPOV urges us to mention that is possible that the Vandal invasion of North Africa was not due to any intentional act of Boniface himself. -- llywrch 02:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for information from 2016 book on Bonifatius[edit]

Jeroen W. P. Wijnendaele recently wrote a fantastic work on Count Boniface which I have heard nothing but very good reviews from, called "The Last of the Romans: Bonifatius - Warlord and comes Africae." If anyone has this book I would appreciate it if you could update this article, which I have done my best to improve, with further information from it.

MMFA (talk) 15:06, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 11 July 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Lennart97 (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bonifacius → Bonifatius – technically the correct spelling, is most common in sources and the article itself Avilich (talk) 01:30, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Avilich: Per WP:UE, as a search on Google shows that usage of Bonifacius is more common than of Bonifatius. Also, the article mostly used "Bonifacius" until these edits in March 2017 by User:MMFA. Happily888 (talk) 05:07, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Sam Sailor 08:57, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Avilich and Happily888: queried move request. Sam Sailor 08:57, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Happily888: what's your problem? The results are obviously inflated due to Wikipedia mirrors, and raw google searches are considered unreliable. Drive-by comments like yours are plainly disruptive, especially when you cite bogus guidelines like UE which have nothing to do with the subject. Avilich (talk) 14:13, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- What a nasty and unnecessary comment - makes me wonder what your problem is. I see no disruption here, just the process working as intended. Apparently your uncontroversial move request wasn't as clearly uncontroversial as you thought it was, so now it's at RM. What's the big deal? Lennart97 (talk) 21:56, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lennart97: Does this constitute consensus already? Of two lean oppose votes, one was switched and the other withdrawn, and this has gone over for more than a week. Avilich (talk) 15:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there does seem to be a consensus. Since I didn't vote or voice an opinion on the proposed move itself, I think I'm sufficiently uninvolved to close the discussion, which I will now do. Lennart97 (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with * '''Support''' or * '''Oppose''',then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Support as nom. Spelling with T is used on the Pauly-Wissowa (s:de:RE:Bonifatius 1), the PLRE, and in this recent work about him. Results for for the C spelling on Google scholar are mostly older sources. On Google proper they're either wikipedia mirrors or much older sources. Avilich (talk) 14:13, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
~~Lean oppose~~. This article is currently based entirely on secondary sources, which is a major deficiency; it does not cite any of the historians or writers we might consult for more information. The DGRBM article is more helpful, in that it cites primarily to Augustine, Procopius, and Olympiodorus, evidently the main sources for his life. I was only able to find the relevant portions of Procopius in Greek—the works readily available in English do not concern the subject of this article, or refer to him as "Boniface". Olympiodorus also wrote in Greek. I could not find the letters of Augustine touching on the subject—only "selected" letters which did not select anything to do with him. However, I think I have figured out the problem.

Procopius is likely the main source for his life, and he wrote in Greek, which of course does not have a direct equivalent to the letter 'C'. He would have rendered the name into Greek with a 'T', and it's fair to say that Olympiodorus would have done the same. Augustine wrote in Latin, and I think must have rendered the name 'Bonifacius', which after all is the form that would be expected. So here we have a conflict between older sources which render Latin names according to traditional Latin orthography, and recent sources which insist upon a strictly literal translation of Greek, even when it comes to Latin names. If I am correct, and the only real distinction is whether you use the spelling in Augustine, who wrote in Latin, or the spelling in the Greek writings, then the article should stay where it is, or perhaps be moved to "Boniface" (just a guess, but there might be other articles with that title, hence the decision to leave it at "Bonifacius"). Our subject is a Roman with a Latin name, and I can see no reason to spell it with Greek orthography, merely because the majority of the historical writing about him is in Greek. P Aculeius (talk) 12:27, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@P Aculeius: 'Bonifatius' is the Latin spelling of his Latin name. Augustine spelled it with T (see here, here, and here), as did Marcellinus Comes, Prosper Tiro (here and here), Jordanes, the two Gallic Chronicles of 452 and 511, and the Consularia Italica. Augustine actually knew him, and that may confirm T as the 'better' spelling. 'Bonifatius' also seems to be most common in recent secondary sources, as per my comment below. Avilich (talk) 18:25, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A check in the C-S Databank suggests that Bonifaci- is quite rare in epigraphy, whereas Bonifati- is relatively abundant. That seems to indicate that the latter is the regular form in Latin, contrary to my expectations. I think I was fooled into supposing that the name was derived from facio, and cognate with "benificent". Not sure where the other spelling comes from, but as long as it's mentioned in the lead as an alternative spelling, I can't see a strong objection to moving the article as proposed. P Aculeius (talk) 23:39, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@P Aculeius: presumably it's the same sort of variation that yields, say, Lepcis Magna instead of Leptis Magna. I neglected above to mention Hydatius, who does use the C spelling, but that's the only primary source I could find for that aside from a few inscriptions. THose are all the Latin sources that the PLRE references, so it's unlikely there are more. Avilich (talk) 23:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

~~Lean oppose~~ Comment. Google Books Ngram shows the current spelling was dominant until recently. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:57, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So you actually demonstrated that the T spelling is more common. And there's no way all of these results refer to this Bonifatius. In a more specific search, 'bonifatius aetius' yields thrice as many results as 'bonifacius aetius' (Aetius = his contemporary and rival). Avilich (talk) 23:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So I'm no expert on this, I'll defer to the better judgement of others. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:46, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.