Talk:Ælfgifu (wife of Eadwig)

Untitled

There seem to be at least two Elgivas:

One (d. 944) was the mother of Edwy of England (whose page lists both his mother and his wife for this name, each linking to this page.) and of Edgar of England; she was the wife of Edmund I of England, and had the title of Queen of England. She is also considered a saint.

The other was the wife of Edwy of England.

An alternate form of the name is Æthelgifu.

Not sure how to go about making a disambiguation page. --Magda 18:24, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England lists 19 instances of the name St.Elgiva was Edwy's wife. His wife had the same name. Aethelgiva was his mother in law. Aelgifu or Elgiva was the name of Ethelred the Unready's first wife and his second wife Emma was also known as Aelgifu.Not to be confused with Aelgifu of Northampton whose father was murdered by Ethelred and became Cnut's concubine and mother of King Harald Harefoot. Aelgyfu also appears rather cryptically in the Bayeux Tapestry. She may have been the mistress of Swein Godwinsson.Confused? Not as much as the unfortunate King Edwy.Streona 00:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Elgiva and Chesham?

At some time around the Medieval or Tudor period there was a Lady Elgiva associated with Cestrham(?) or Chesham.

The Elgiva's were one of the major local familes as were the Lowndes's.

Much later the name Elgiva was used for the Chesham (Bucks,UK) theatre.

Not just two Elgivas

There may not just be two people by the name of Elgiva, but Elgiva is a short form of both Aelfgiva/Aelfgifu and Aethelgiva/Aethelgifu. Since the names would have been written down in their Latin form, it may be difficult to know which name Elgiva referred to. Thus, when you check your sourses, see if you only see one of Elgiva's names or both used to refer to the same person. 23:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Ælfgifu's ancestry

Barlow, Lundie W. "The Antecedents of Earl Godwine of Wessex" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1957, proposes that Æthelfrith was the grandson of King Æthelred I through his son Æthelhelm, based on four estates belonging to ealdorman Æthelhelm of Wiltshire later being held by descendants of ealdorman Æthelfrith. This royal connection would go some way to explaining the enormous prestige enjoyed by Æthelfrith’s sons, but is problematical, because of the uncertain identification of ealdorman Æthelhelm with the son of King Æthelred, and because Æthelfrith begins attesting in 883, which suggest he would be too old. Barlow gets round the latter problem by proposing two ealdormen Æthelfrith, pointing to the long tenure if it is the same man signs until 915 and possibly continued as ealdorman as late as 930, the earliest attestation of his son Ælfstan in the same ealdormanry.

Barlow proposes ealdorman Eadric of Hampshire as Ælfgifu's father; by a process of elimination he is the most probable candidate under this hypothesis. His brother ealdorman Æthelwold's will indicates that he himself was childless, and a nephew, Ælfsige, who receives a bequest is presumably the son of Ælfstan, who had predeceased him.

Dates coherence

Queen until 958 or 959? (both dates are in the article) --Againme (talk) 15:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Diagram

Two genealogical hypotheses (green and blue) for the connection between Ælfgifu and Eadwig, combined in a diagram.

Click here for a version with clickable wikilinks.

@Agricolae: It seems to me that the diagram on the right simply faithfully represents the two conjectures presented in the Family background section. I don't understand why you persist in removing it. The section has had a diagram ever since it was created by User:Cavila ten years ago (diff), originally File:Aelfgifu-genealogy.jpg; while the present one has been there since 2016. Without such a visual aid the section becomes far more difficult to follow. I really don't see your objection to it? Jheald (talk) 16:48, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Just that it presents hyper-speculative guesswork by one author, something that is far from scholarly consensus, completely ignoring the alternative (equally speculative) reconstructions that have been published, without the least indication of how tenuous and POV the whole thing is. It is misleading in the extreme. Agricolae (talk) 17:43, 5 March 2019 (UTC) (I do find it funny how an edit that has been stable for months and months is then suddenly repeatedly reverted claiming BRD. Certainly at some point an edit becomes the 'new normal', and the restoration is the Bold move. Agricolae (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2019 (UTC))

@Agricolae: But it isn't hyper-speculative guesswork by one author, is it? It's a straight representation of the text in the section Family background.

If you object to the text in the section Family background that's one thing, and worth opening up for discussion. But the diagram is just a representation of what is written there. Jheald (talk) 22:14, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it is hyper-speculative guesswork by one author, Stafford, not a consensus of the field. That this hyper-speculative material has been highlighted in the text (at all, let alone to the exclusion of all the alternatives) does not mean it should have, or that we need to make a template stripped of all the caveats to make this recent POV guesswork all the more easily propagated. Agricolae (talk) 22:26, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Okay, so do you have references to establish that what we have at the moment is "not the consensus of the field", and that per WP:DUE there is a wider range of published views that the article should take account of?

That's where we need to start, I think, with a survey of what references the article ought to be taking account of on this point.

Depending what that balance of views look like, appropriate ways forward might be either a stronger balancing section at the end; or, if Stafford's view really is dismissed by a majority of her colleagues, a more radical root-and-branch rewrite.

I do think a diagram (and particularly a linked diagram) is useful for presenting the personalities in play, and some of their relationships; and for letting readers click through to discover more about them. If, as you suggest, Stafford's position only considers two out of a whole spectrum of possibilities that have support, then the best way forward might not be to remove any diagram, but instead to add a second diagram, if we want to underline that there is no reconstruction or single hypothesis that should be considered authoritative.

But the place to start is with a literature survey. The text we have at the moment gives references for what it says. If you are right and there are other positions and suggestions that should be there in the weighing-up, those equally need references. Jheald (talk) 09:56, 6 March 2019 (UTC)