Talk:Biddenden Maids

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Discrepancies

This article says they are conjoined twins, then ends by saying they were probably sisters, and "may have beent twins." Is there any question when they are conjoined at birth? Or, are we saying that this is a fraud?--Esprit15d 14:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

left a piece of land of about 20 acres (81,000 m²) to the churchwardens of Biddenden, the rent from which was to provide a dole of bread and cheese (and sometimes beer and, today, also tea) to the poor (now the less well-off) of the village <-- Is this one of those silly political correctness jokes or do the Brits actually say "the less well-off" to the poor?--Find mobius 10:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Why did metros remove my note? It was perfectly acceptable for people to know that there were no documented cases of this kind of conjoined twin.IslaamMaged126 (talk) 17:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Your note was inappropriate and not necessary for this article. Metros (talk) 01:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Fine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IslaamMaged126 (talk • contribs) 12:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Congrats

This is one of the best uses of Measuring Worth I've seen including a statement of the limitations.

UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Measuring Worth: UK CPI. The rural Kent economy in this period was based on tenant farming and involved significant amounts of barter and payment in kind. Consumer pricing does not translate accurately into modern equivalents; 2010 equivalent prices should be treated as a very rough guide only.

You should cite Measuring Worth, they provide author, title and year for each data set (at the results section). Fifelfoo (talk) 11:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you've heard my views on the advantages and limitations of MW as a source before… I intentionally kept the footnote in that slightly non-standard format to keep it consistent with the appearance of the {{inflation-fn}} template, which I imagine is how Wikipedia readers (or those who read the reference sections, anyway) expect to see inflation figures displayed. – iridescent 20:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Year of birth / death

Do we need a section explaining the 400 year discrepancy in the suggested dates for the twins? FWIW, the 1500 date is more plausible than the 1100 date for reasons given in the article. I think Coles Finch explains the discrepancy well. Mjroots (talk) 18:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

See my comments below; I don't think anyone, other than Clinch, has ever taken the 1500 date seriously, and the evidence against it is actually stronger than the evidence against a date of 1100. Per my comments below, I'm really not happy about Coles Finch being used as any kind of source in this context. – iridescent 19:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Coles Finch

I'm not very happy about Coles Finch being treated as a RS in this context. It's a 1933 book, on a completely unrelated topic, which happens to mention the twins, and I worked pretty hard keeping this explicitly sourced from those few books by people who were either experts in teratology or significant historians and folklorists. By treating his opinions (which appear to just be cut-and-pastes from Clinch) as of equal weight to Hasted, Chambers or Bondeson, to my mind it gives far too much weight to Clinch's fringe view that the "1100" on the cake was actually "1500". (This was the image Clinch was talking about when he made that claim; I can't see any way that can be seen as "1500" by anyone who hasn't already made up their mind what they want to see.) Clinch's view deserves to be mentioned given his impact, but I don't think anyone takes it seriously—the evidence against it is fairly strong. (A two-headed woman living a few minutes from Canterbury, in a period where anything out of the ordinary was documented obsessively, would surely have been mentioned somewhere, and there is no mention of anything resembling the legend prior to 1770, other than a single ambiguous "maidens who grew together" in the 1640s.) – iridescent 19:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Coles Finch was a significant historian, and to some extent a folklorist on Kent-related matters. He didn't just write about windmills, although Watermills and Windmills is perhaps his best known work. CF relates his actual experiences in the late 1920s/early 1930s. He had purchased a Biddenden cake and saved it in order to photograph it for his book, but that cake had been eaten by a mouse, which is why he had to purchase another cake and therefore was able to give a comparison between the two. I don't know where you are, Iridescent, but the book was reprinted in 1976 and may be available through your local library. Mjroots (talk) 19:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

BTW, Biddenden to Canterbury would probably have been the best part of a day's journey, even in the 1500s. Mjroots (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Biddenden Maids

Surely the names added in the C19 aren't the best material for a title. Shouldn't this be titled Biddenden Maids, as the article asserts they are "commonly known"? Not obscure enough? --Wetman (talk) 22:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd personally prefer Biddenden Maids as a title, as that would cover the period before the "Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst" names appeared in the late 18th century; it would also avoid the problem of which twin goes first in the title. – iridescent 23:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with a renaming to Biddenden Maids. Avoids the alternate spelling of surname issue too. Mjroots (talk) 14:06, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Moving. Unless anyone has a strong opinion otherwise, I'll leave "Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst (or Chalkhurst), commonly known as the Biddenden Maids" as the opening, though. – iridescent 14:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Double redirects and incoming iwl fixed. Mjroots (talk) 14:21, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Topic of this article

The topic of this article seems to be the charity as well as the maids themselves... and the lands that funded the charities. Shouldn't it be the Biddenden Maids heritage ? 70.24.248.211 (talk) 04:40, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Lands

This article is missing coverage of the bequeath, there is little detail about the "Bread and Cheese Lands". 70.24.248.211 (talk) 04:40, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Lead picture

As so often happens, the lead picture is a 19th century engraving of a completely fictitious nature. This picture is merely some 19th century artist's drawing based on no more evidence than that presented in this article. This picture has no current relevance whatever and as historical reference is only relevant to the date at which it was produced.

Can I propose that one of the many more "genuine" drawings is employed, either:

• a drawing taken from one of the moulds or cakes or plaques, which have historical/archaeological relevance that the illustration of two pretty girls from a gentleman's magazine does not possess
• the photo of the Biddenden sign, which has current value, representing the way in which the Maids of Biddenden have been presented to the traveller and tourist for the last 80 years.

Amandajm (talk) 07:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

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