Talk:Master of the Horse

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Untitled[edit]

Equites is often translated as Knights. So Would not Master Of Knights also be an acceptable interpretation? --R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 01:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, not in this case. The Equites were a social class with military overtones and implications which, quite frankly, do not really need to be gone into here. Suffice it to say that the Magister Equitum was referring to the cavalry and is translated uniformly as the Master of Horse. Simply put, Eques means horseman or cavalry first and the equestrian order second, in this case. Admittedly, the Equites would have been under the command of the Magister Equitum, provided they were mounted on the horses they were able to afford, but this is not a guaranteed thing.

Koniuszy/Konyushy mergeto[edit]

Why have those two stubs, if they can become sections of this article?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WPMILHIST Assessment[edit]

A fine start, and a very interesting topic; some of the sections are quite short, but the length of the article overall, and the obvious level of effort put into it, seems to warrant a B. The introduction could use some work, however. Might be helpful to put "military post" or "appointed government position" or the like, as "position" by itself isn't quite clear enough, I think. Also, while I realize it's a very broad topic covering a wide range of differing meanings of the term across time and space, I'm just generally against one-line intro paragraphs. See what you can do about expanding this, summarizing the content of the rest of the article, and/or describing the overall significance or notability of the subject. LordAmeth 23:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of constable[edit]

Anyone know if this is the origin of the term constable, which apparently comes from the Latin comes stabuli (keeper of the stables)? bobanny 02:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Master of the Horse is incorrect[edit]

The latin word for "of the Horse" is "equi", genitive of equus. Equitum means "of the Chivalry" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abate Breuil (talkcontribs) 20:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, except that "horse" here is a collective noun, meaning the cavalry or knights as a whole. Definition 6 here: "Mounted soldiers; cavalry: a squadron of horse." It's the standard English translation by custom, even though it sits poorly with 21st-century idiom. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008[edit]

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dismissable Magister Equitum?[edit]

The article says: "if the first Magister Equitum either died or was dismissed during the six months of the dictatorship, another had to be nominated in his stead". I'm not exactly sure here, but to my mind Livy states that Dictator did not have the authority to dismiss Magister Equitum, and I do not remember any occasion when a new one was selected instead of dead one - although Livy states at least one casulaty of such magistrate in 2nd Punic war, he does not say about new one being appointed213.208.171.147 (talk) 12:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SPQR graphic[edit]

Since the article is not confined to the Magister equitum of ancient Rome, it doesn't seem as if the SPQR graphic should dominate the page. This happens with some other articles too; sometimes the article originally had dealt only with the subject in ancient Rome, and then was expanded. The graphic should be placed within the relevant section; if it's too large, a collapsed form should be used, and if the graphic doesn't have a compact form, I guess I think it shouldn't be used. But I offer this only as an opinion. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:14, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 29 October 2015[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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 00:39, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Master of the HorseMaster of the horse – This is not about a specific office called Master of the Horse, which would be capitalised, but a generic category of offices in various different countries. There is therefore no need to capitalise it as it is not a proper name. Initial move disputed. Incidentally, despite the claim when it was moved back to the capitalised form, the "horse" in the title does not generally refer to the cavalry but to an archaic singular usage of horses, as this official was most commonly head of the royal stables. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:33, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose: per Cplakidas, this is a proper name and title. Montanabw(talk) 23:13, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Only when used to refer to a specific post. So Master of the Horse (United Kingdom) would be a proper name, as it is a specific post held by a single individual at any one time. But master of the horse when used generically, as it is here, would not be. It's no more of a proper name than is, say, prime minister or field marshal, neither of which we capitalise. Why is this an exception? Because it's got a definite article in it? That's illogical. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:17, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Side issue per your reasoning, Master of the horse (Kingdom of Hungary) should probably be capitalized. One non-policy reason I'd see for keeping the capitalization of the nommed page is that uncapitalized it makes me think of a horse trainer and not an office title. Randy Kryn 11:28, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • Indeed it should. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:32, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • And now it has been! -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:33, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • Thanks, you ride a fast horse. Side issue resolved and put out to pasture. Randy Kryn 11:37, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Wherever this title is used, it's a title, even in translation, and so it makes sense to capitalize Horse. I might not object to seeing it written generically as master of the horse if I saw it in text, providing that the context were clear, as I routinely don't capitalize senate, consul, or dictator when writing on Roman topics. But then the context is usually clear, and it's at best a matter of style. For an article title I think I would treat it as a proper noun with both Master and Horse capitalized to avoid confusion. P Aculeius (talk) 12:03, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This is a formal title and should be capitalized. White Arabian mare (Neigh) 18:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)White Arabian mare[reply]
  • Oppose as proposed. Necrothesp makes a valid point: if this is a general job-title, then there's no reason for it to be capitalised. But it isn't, it's the formal title of a job in Britain, and detail of a lot of other similar jobs in other countries has been shoe-horned in, some of them with fairly suspect translations. Options are probably: (1) leave well alone; (2) move to a general title such as, say, Master of horse, and make a separate page for the British position if desired, as there already is for that in Hungary. No opinion on which of those would be preferable. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:28, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.