Talk:Kingdom of England

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The Religion of Pre-Norman England.[edit]

I feel as though there needs to be a discussion on this. As I had provided sourced evidence for England not being in communion with Rome before the Norman Invasion. Gunkclugpug (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personal opinion. Not supported by academia. Brother Jerome (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]


This is not personal opinion and is supported by historians on the topic, look at the non Orthodox Sources cited. --Gunkclugpug (talk) 22:37, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]


It is also clear that you are editing the article based on your personal opinion. You have provided no sources that England was in communion with Rome during the Norman invasion. In your eyes as a catholic you are trying to claim a Church that was in Schism from Rome as being catholic, this makes no sense. This would be like (in your eyes) claiming someone in Schism with Rome today is actually Catholic. --Gunkclugpug (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary lack of communion does not mean Eastern Orthodoxy. This is claiming that implying that England before the East–West_Schism belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is a personal opinion. Academia regards the religion in England before the Schism as Catholicism, as every page with a pre-schism Catholic kingdom shows. Brother Jerome (talk) 08:10, 27 April 2024 UTC [refresh]

Since when is not being in communion enough to be Eastern Orthodox? Are Protestants Orthodox now? Mechamutoh (talk) 00:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Being that prior to the excommunications in 1054, a distinct Eastern Orthodox Church did not exist apart from the greater Chalcedonian church, how is there any justification for England being apart of it? Furthermore, a good example of continued communion between Rome and the English church, as well as the submission of the latter to the former, around this time would be St. Dunstan. Andreas Zell (talk) 00:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's a pretty decent article on Pope Gregory's missions to Anglo Saxon England. Could be a good place to start https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_mission 


Comes.amanuensis (talk) 06:37, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Pope Gregory I is part of the Byzantine Papacy, as Rome itself was part of the Byzantine Empire. Dimadick (talk) 05:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 April 2020[edit]

The "succeeded by" should say Kingdom of Great Britain as opposed to just Great Britain, which refers to the island, not the former kingdom. C.monarchist28 (talk) 02:49, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To editor C.monarchist28:  done. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 01:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval period"[edit]

This is a rather Anglocentric view. England was irrelevant in much of European stage & history until around the English Civil War (or maybe the Elizabethan era but that's kinda stretching it in my opinion & even then this era kicked in late during medieval times). British dominance really only started in the late 18th-century(-ish), though France (& perhaps Prussia & Russia) was stronger than Britain & even Austria/the Habsburgs was arguably more powerful than Britain for much of the 18th-century — Preceding unsigned comment added by Producer Richter (talk • contribs) 10:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Date[edit]

Hi all, the dates of the kingdom in the infobox are currently given as 927-1707, with the dates of the Commonwealth listed below (1649-1660). Would it not make more sense to list the dates of the Kingdom as 927-1649, 1660-1707 to reflect the fact that the kingdom was not in existence during the commonwealth years? Please let me know what you think! Vesuvio14 (talk) 11:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that, as always, we have to be informed by reliable sources. If the tendency amongst sources is to date the Kingdom of England as all the way from 927-1707 then we should also do so. If instead, they date it as you suggest, then I would agree with a change. I'll have a look at my academic sources I have at hand and see, but always welcome if others have sources to provide as well. Good question! SamWilson989 (talk) 13:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

12 July 927[edit]

This article claims that the kingdom of England was created on 12 July 927. That is an absurdly dogmatic statement. The creation of England didn't happen on a single day, it was a gradual process that happened over several decades, during the reigns of Alfred, Edward and Athelstan. This article should reflect that. See the article List of English monarchs for a fuller explanation (and also the discussions on its talk page, archived pages 5 and 6). Richard75 (talk) 17:22, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What date should we start with instead? 886? Faren29 (talk) 10:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think that rather than fix on any one specific date, we should say that it occurred over the period 886 to 927. Richard75 (talk) 10:30, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How do we put that into the info box without it being too messy? Faren29 (talk) 10:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's already too messy! I think we could strip a lot of that out. Richard75 (talk) 12:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Should we put Alfred as the first monarch? Faren29 (talk) 23:20, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think so. At the very least we should say that opinions differ and that arguments can be made for him, his son and his grandson. Richard75 (talk) 23:32, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've made a few rough edits. Feel free to add on and/or reword. Faren29 (talk) 13:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

12 July 927 again[edit]

Here we go again...! There are some countries, like the United States, that can point to a specific date when they came into being, like 4 July 1776, because they declared independence for example. That doesn't mean that every country can do that. England was not created overnight; it emerged as a result of a gradual process that took decades, generations even. Several kingdoms gradually came under the rule of one king, during the course of more than one reign. But some people are trying to use Wikipedia to assert that England popped into being on 12 July 927, as if on 11 July nobody had ever heard of it. An assertion like that would certainly require some reliable sources. To be as clear as possible: I am not saying that England appeared in any particular earlier year either. I'm only saying it wasn't created from scratch out of nothing in a single moment by the swearing of a few oaths in 927. 927 is perhaps the latest date on which this process may be said to have been completed by, but that is not the same thing. Richard75 (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A viewpoint you are entitled to but will also require sources from modern historians of the Anglo-Saxon period. 141.163.120.3 (talk) 02:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is, there have been literally hundreds of high-quality publications, and entire books - several very famous and some less famous books - written on precisely this subject, and a great many of them are not in agreeance. Academic consensus on this issue is almost impossible to establish because of the very nature of the time and place: the Angles, Saxons, and Norse left very little in the way of written records, and the Celtic/Brittanic polities were not much better.
Unfortunately, a bunch of Wikipedians appear to have taken upon themselves to write a little DIY narrative history, and have left this - presumably very commonly read and utilised article by schoolchildren all across the globe - article in such a state that it is as misinformative as it is informative. Decolonizetheinternet (talk) 04:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that date and phrase "The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927" and immediately clicked on the Talk Page to see if anyone was as surprised as I was (as this particular time and place in history I happen to have a reasonable degree of expertise on). Thankfully, there was. To take just this first sentence:
"The Kingdom of England" is an anachronism for 927 AD, no such Kingdom existed, as the concept of "England" was still developing at that time. Æthelstan (c. 894-939) by the date given, was King of Wessex (a West Saxon polity), Mercia (an Anglic polity), York (hitherly a still largely Norse, or rather Hiberno-Norse, polity), and the "Old North" Kingdom of Strathclyde - however the latter two (and more) still very much continued to exist after 927, with Strathclyde in particular at least formally still Brittonic (Cumbric), not "English".
"sovereign state" is an odd phrase to use for Æthelstan's realm. As opposed to what? Being a vassal of another Kingdom, as the Kingdom of England established by William the Conqueror in 1066 was (a vassal of the Kingdom of France)? Did this "sovereign state" have full "sovereignty" over Strathclyde and Northumbria? Not to mention Lothian, Wales, the Cornish SW, and others?
"island of Great Britain" is what we can this landmass today, but only during the last few centuries. Æthelstan used the term Britanniæ (Latin for "Britain") at the time but it didn't include Alba/Caledonia (what we call Scotland).
"from 12 July 927" - All that happened on this date, was Owain of Strathclyde (or Owain ap Hywel of Gwen, or both, sources differ) pledged fealty to Æthelstan. But this was not a singular even, such pledges were made and broken to each other constantly in early medieval Britain and Ireland, and soon after they were at war again, with Owain and his son still calling themselves Kings - as did the the Norse Kings of York. The date and even is only significant in retrospect, if one were looking for a precursor to the Kingdom of England as we now know it, as it comes close to measuring up to the same territory. However both Strathclyde and York regained their independence shortly after, and none of the aforementioned Kingdoms came fully and permanently under one person's or one polity's rule until 1066.
In other words, the article appears to be jam-packed with anachronism and DIY history, and would require someone responsible to devote many hours of tedious labour to bring up to scratch. Decolonizetheinternet (talk) 04:46, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Decolonizetheinternet Please feel free to make a start. Richard75 (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Richard75: they can't, they're blocked. Polyamorph (talk) 16:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Lol! Richard75 (talk) 17:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let's leave history to the historians. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. In history articles, we should just write about what historians say; if a historian said it, then there will be a reliable source for it. Anything else is just original research. Richard75 (talk) 16:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, if this was true then there would be historians saying it, and reliable sources and stuff. Wikipedia isn't the place for advancing fringe theories. Richard75 (talk) 21:40, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Roman Catholic religion[edit]

It's not really credible or even meaningful to say that England was a Roman Catholic country in 927, when the Great Schism didn't happen until 1054. Richard75 (talk) 16:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

True enough. There are no meaningful distinctions between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church before the East–West Schism.Dimadick (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Date[edit]

The date is incorrect, because we know for a fact that the Kingdom was founded in 927, and there are p lenty of reliable sources saying so. Blackmamba31248 (talk) 23:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know that for a fact, and where are these sources? Richard75 (talk) 10:35, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.openculture.com/2021/09/how-england-first-became-england-an-animated-history.html
https://www.thebritishmonarchy.co.uk/post/kings-of-england-before-1066#:~:text=Anglo%252DSaxon%2520England%2520was%2520early,927%E2%80%93939).
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-UK-Great-Britain-Whats-the-Difference/ (This one says 925, but it is rounded)
And the main answer when you look it up on Google. Your right, we don’t know for sure, but 927 is the most agreed upon date. Better to just say C. 927 instead of the extremly broad “Early 10th century” Blackmamba31248 (talk) 15:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those aren't very scholarly or serious sources though. One describes itself as "an animated history," one is just the British monarchy website which isn't even a history site per se, and the third is very basic (the first paragraph is just an explanation of the difference between England, Great Britain and the UK). An encyclopaedia should use better sources than that. Google isn't a source, it's just a search engine. I realise that "the early tenth century" is very broad, but then the evolution of England took a long time, over three kings' reigns. It didn't happen in a single year. Richard75 (talk) 15:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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