Wikipedia:Peer review/Hilary of Chichester/archive1
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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to take it to FAC at some point and would greatly appreciate any comments about its prose and its comprehensibilty by non-medievalists.
Thanks, Ealdgyth - Talk 04:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Ruhrfisch comments: Another interesting and generally well done article on a medieval bishop I am not sure I ever heard of before. Here are my suggestions for improvement, mostly fairly nit-picky:
- Please expand the lead so it is an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself and my rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way. Please see WP:LEAD
- Any chance of an image for the lead (upper right corner?) I see there are several images at Chichester Cathedral, but suspect all of them are too recent to be associated with Hilary.
- First sentence is very short - if you had to say the three most important things about him, what would they be? Can they all fit into a new first sentence?
- Try to provide context for the reader who is not a medieval expert. Here are a bunch of examples:
- would it make sense to add bishop to ...promoting Hilary to [bishop of] the see of Chichester in 1146? Not everyone knows what a see in this sense is.
- Provide years (if known) for Hilary served as a clerk for Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester as well as Dean of Christchurch ...
- Why was his nomination for Archbishop unsuccessful? Also should the pope be indentified here Unsuccessfully nominated as a candidate for the archbishopric of York against Henry Murdac in 1146, the pope chose to compensate Hilary by appointing him to Chichester.[5] instead of the next sentence?
- What was the council or Rheims? Why did the king not want the Archbishop of Canterbury to attend?
- Probably need to explain that in those days there was a struggle over who decided who was a bishop - the pope, the chapter of the cathedral, the king or some combination.
- Link Pope Hadrian IV in Battle Abbey section (I think this is the first he shows up)
- say where this was and was present at the announcement of the canonization in 1161.[1]
- I don't understand this All the bishops but Hilary swore, with the reservation that the customs were not in conflict with canon law. Hilary, however, added no qualifiers. Did he swear or not - first sentence sounds like he did not, second sounds like he did. I also do not understand how swearing the king's oath is thus refused to support the archbishop's party.[1][12]
- Article needs a copyedit. Here are some rough spots:
- After unsuccessfully being nominated to become archbishop of York, ... makes it sound like he was not even nominated (when it was the nomination that was unsuccessful, right?)
- Awkward - isn't Hilary the bishop in Hilary spent many years engaged in a struggle with Battle Abbey over the bishop's attempts to inspect the abbey.
- parallel construction - perhaps Known for providing for his clergy and [for his skill] as a canon lawyer...
- two uses of probably in one sentence: Hilary was probably born around 1110, and was probably of low birth, ...
- Probably best to break this into two sentences He was educated as a canon lawyer, and was an advocate in Rome in 1144,[2] where he served in the papal chancery in 1146,[3] and some of his coworkers were Robert Pullen, John of Salisbury, and Nicholas Breakspear (who later became Pope Adrian IV).[4]
- Avoid needless repetition: ...the pope chose to compensate Hilary by appointing him to Chichester.[5] His candidacy to York had been supported by ... King Stephen of England.[1] He was nominated to the see of Chichester by Pope Eugenius III in 1146, pope names him to Chichester twice in three sentences as written now
- Should there be commas here: Robert de Bethune[,] bishop of Hereford[,] and William de Turbeville[,] bishop of Norwich.?
- Struggle with Battle Abbey is one long paragraph - can it be split into two?
Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)