Talk:Crisis of the late Middle Ages

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ORoame. Peer reviewers: Riggslm.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

?[edit]

What is the point of this article? Do we need it?Yes Is the title even an established term of art? Srnec (talk) 00:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And if it is, shouldn't it be "crises of the Late Middle Ages", since the article mentions multiple events? Or is the article trying to suggest that they were synergistic (i.e. they had a stronger impact together than they would have had if they occurred at completely separate times)? At least "crises" gets slightly more ghits (755) than "crisis" (664).
If it is minimally supported by literature, then I don't mind keeping it, because it's interesting to try to point out possible patterns throughout history. The "Second Thirty Years War" article is in a very similar situation — it gets only 588 ghits, and it makes it clear that it's not a common term or necessarily well-supported, but it's still interesting to ponder briefly. There's also "war cycles" which seems to be slightly more widespread, and integrates the other period of pan-European wars. --Underpants 16:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Black Death?[edit]

The article as written now appears to simply be someone's unfinished research paper. There is absolutely no way one can write an article on the crisis of the Late Middle Ages without a mention of the Black Death which cut the population in half and the Hundred Years War which saw the humiliation of France's nobility and the rise of England as a major rival to the French. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aelsbeck (talk • contribs) 14:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Added new information pertinent to environment[edit]

Added new sections about the relation between the Great Famine and the Black Death and changes in the climate. Still having trouble figuring out how to integrate the whole article together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ORoame (talk • contribs) 17:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is all speculative garbage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.212.232.131 (talk) 19:02, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Russian Wikipedia[edit]

Hi,

I am a translator and Russian Wikipedia editor. A week ago I have translated the article into Russian. But quite unexpectedly a row has started and the article has been listed for deletion. The argument is as follows:

I can't understand what the article is about. Three crises are gathered together, it is not clear how they relate to each other (ecological, demographic, political) and are presented together as the crisis of the Late Middle Age. What is this, a well-established term (if yes, where), or just an expression that several authors used one or two times - absolutely not to understand from the article. Interviki is there, but there is a situation like in this article, dumping everything into a pile and consecrating this action with one or two links.

Alternative argument of the opponents is Fringe theories.

I do not believe that an article featuring in all main European languages may be a Fringe theory. But beeing not a historian I cannot find proper material arguments and might loose a discussion.

Please provide arguments in defence of the article as a proper science theory. Best, Rubenoath (talk) 04:20, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Rubenoath:, We're talking about "historical theory" not "science theory" of course, as there's nothing scientific about history. Everything named in history, including movements, periods, eras, revolutions, wars, dynasties, virtually everything (other than people and places!) is invented at some point or other by a historian, journalist, even art critic (Impressionism) or other writer, so a good faith discussion on Russian Wikipedia ("ru-wiki") about whether this is a well-established term is a perfectly appropriate question to pose.
If a similar question were asked here, on English Wikipedia ("en-wiki"), we would refer to the WP:AT guideline on Article Titles, in particular, the section on using the common name. On en-wiki, this rule states that Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources) and the internal link references the reliable source section of en-wiki's Verifiability policy which is one of the core principles of Wikipedia. The rules on ru-wiki may well be different (their rules are up to the ru-wiki community to decide), but it does sound like they are applying something very similar to our article title policy on the use of common names, and the guidelines on the use of reliable sources.
Some corresponding policy and guideline articles (these are not translations of each other; the rules may be completely different):
The ':en:' prefixes above are there for your copy-paste convenience on other wikis; you do not need to use these prefixes here at en-wiki.
If the term was not used at all by historians and was instead invented by a Wikipedia author, that would be grounds for immediate deletion of the article. (Exceptions provided for descriptive titles, but that's not what we are talking about here, I don't think.) In searching for the exact title "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages" and "Die Krise des Spätmittelalters", we find that the term is used in published books. Whether the number of references in books is sufficient to support the argument that this is a genuine historical topic that is recognizable under this name, is precisely something that should be determined under community discussion, such as the on you are having on ru-wiki. It's also true, I believe, that editors have a natural bias towards things written about in their language, and if there is very little written in Russian about it, you may have a hard time establishing notability of the concept based solely on English and German sources. It should be noted, that there are some examples of the term in Russian books, although at least one of them is a translation.
I did some preliminary searches for the article title "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages" on Google books:
  • search English books Sample quote (from [Borst (1992)): When we discuss the crisis of the Late Middle Ages, we consider intellectual movements beside religious, social, and economic ones, but universities are given attention only in passing, as in the collection of essays of 1984 edited by Fernand Seibt and Winfried Eberhard, Europa 1400, Die Krise des Spätmittelalters.
  • search Russian books
  • search German books – dozens of results (also this expression)
    A very interesting comment is in the very first sentence of Müller (2012), which discusses the term itself: Krise— beginnt das Buch gleich mit einem ungebrachten, ja falschen Begriff? Denn zweifellos ist die These von der Krise des Spätmittelalters seit längerem ihrerseits in der Krise, und wohl kaum ein Kenner der Materie dürfte sich heute noch ohne Wenn und Aber zu ihr bekennen, was ihm besonderer für deutsche Mittelalthistoriker gilt.     Crisis—does the book start out with an unfounded, even incorrect term? For no doubt the thesis of the crisis of the late Middle Ages has itself been in crisis for some time now, and hardly anyone considered an expert in the field would still profess it without some Ifs and Buts, and that goes double for German Medieval historians. [my translation]
  • search French books – about 6 results
But it would be good to have some historians look at your question as well. Maybe Richard Jensen could offer a more professional opinion about the question of whether the "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages" is a real thing or not. If you have access to some Russian historians, that would be ideal; maybe check the WikiProjects on ru-wiki, or whatever the equivalent is there, for groups of editors interested in history, and ask them. Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 04:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Rubenoath: The more I look at it, the more interesting the topic becomes to me. I think the article could benefit from a Historiography section, which could address some of the questions you and your Russian co-editors have been asking, and I plan to write one. This would be an appropriate place to discuss where the term itself came from, who uses it, what the alternatives are, who argues against it and why, and so on. The very interesting quote from Müller (2012) would definitely find a place there. I can't promise when I'll get to this, but hopefully soon. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 05:23, 3 November 2018 (UTC) Well, I started on it, but haven't even gotten around to the English sources yet, which are the most numerous (or maybe the German ones are). In any case, be aware that if you translate any of this new section, it is a moving target, and may be changing rapidly. One other note regarding translation: as you can see, some of the originals are in other languages (so far, German and Spanish; soon, maybe French) and so keep in mind that if you translate any of the quoted material into Russian, you should really try to translate straight from the original language, and not from an English translation. Mathglot (talk) 07:34, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was asked to comment. "The crisis of the Late Middle Ages" is a standard phrase often used by European and American scholars. a) for examples of uses in titles of scholarly BOOKS see: 1) Desolation of a city: Coventry and the urban crisis of the late Middle Ages (1979), a major scholarly book; 2) Sir Thomas Malory and the cultural crisis of the late Middle Ages (1987); 2) Palatinate and Dukes of Bavaria-A Study Of Changing Norms in the Crisis of the Late Middle-Ages (1996); 4) The Church's Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Schism, Conciliarism and Councils (2013) 5) Europe in 1400—The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages (1986). Also b) for examples of uses in titles of scholarly JOURNAL articles see: 1) "The crisis of the late middle ages: the case of France" (1995); 2; " The Catalan crisis of the Late Middle Ages: state of the question" (2004). 3) "Was there an economic crisis in late medieval Poland?" (1990). When scholars decide to use the term in their titles they emphasize its importance, and means it has the approval of the editors and editorial boards. c) As for Eastern Europe, Karl F. Morrison - (1970) says "In Eastern Europe....The economic crisis of the late Middle Ages led there to the rise of the lower nobility, the institution of serfdom, and the consequent enfeebling of central authority." d) I have seen zero articles that say the term is outdated or useless. I count about 600 scholarly books and articles in English that use the term, according to google SCHOLAR at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C27&q=%22Crisis+of+the+Late+Middle+Ages%22&btnG= Rjensen (talk) 09:43, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Rjensen, that was very helpful. In particular, as a non-historian, I did not realize the significance of having a particular phrase used in the title of a scholarly book or journal article, namely, that it undergoes greater scrutiny there by the editorial board and represents a kind of higher standard of vetting and approval, than would the use of an expression in the body of the work. I'm glad to learn about that.
Rubenoath, take note of that point, because besides all the helpful references that Rjensen listed and the link to the 600-count scholar search above, I think it's worth noting his point that When scholars decide to use the term in their titles they emphasize its importance, and means it has the approval of the editors and editorial boards.
For my part, as I continue my research for the #Historiography section, I have now persuaded myself, even before I read Rjensen's valuable comments above, that 1) the concept of a crisis that ocurred in the late Middle Ages is a topic that is studied and written about by numerous historians in (at least) German, English, French, Spanish, and somewhat surprisingly (to me at least) in Catalan; and secondly, that 2) the term used by scholars to discuss about this concept is "the crisis of the Late Middle Ages", or some equivalent of that in a foreign language. At this point, I know that the concept was studied at least as far back as 1929 (by Marc Bloch) and also that the term was in use by the mid-20th century. (I will add the first use to the article, if I find it.) I have also learned, that besides the hundreds of articles or books on the topic that use the expression, there are also at least two historiographic articles that have been written about the development of the term itself. More later. Mathglot (talk) 10:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Rubenoath: I'm finding references faster than I can incorporate them into the text. I've created a new section in the article, #Further reading, where I am placing references that I've found but haven't incorporated into the text, yet. All references mentioned by Rjensen above were either already in the article as a footnote in the #Historiography section, or have been added as an entry to the Further reading section now. I will be expanding this section, and I suspect it will end up with references in English, German, Catalan, French, and Spanish. The section could be a further resource for you, to answer the questions posed by the editors at ru-wiki. so keep checking back for the most recent version. Mathglot (talk) 20:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks to everyone for the help. Especially helpful is thre Historiorafy chapter. I will append the Russian article with it. I hope that will end the discussion of the deletion of the article in positive Way. Thanks again. Rubenoath (talk) 17:51, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot: I will try to clarify the situation. The main problem with this article, and in the end with its translation in the Russian Wikipedia, is that the article has mixed demographics, economics, and political movements, while the discussions were conducted in 30-50 years ONLY about demographics and economics. As for historiography, you did nice try, but I did it better. You can check my sandbox. These were mainly Western works of the 30-50s. (France, Germany, Poland) and several works of Soviet historians that fiercely denied the crisis of feudalism at that time, because they needed it to happen later (typical Soviet dogmatism), anyway, this is part of historiography as well. --Алый Король (talk) 03:51, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Mathglot, do you agree with the new version of this article in the Russian Wikipedia? Its size is reduced three times, all illustrations are removed from the text. DarDar (talk) 11:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@DarDar: Under en-wiki policies and guidelines concerning Verifiability, it would be quite unusual to remove such a large quantity of content substantiated by numerous citations to reliable sources without first having a discussion about it on the article's talk page to resolve any content disputes. If someone did remove it, it would very likely be restored by another editor with an edit summary like, Unexplained removal of sourced content along with a request to take it to Talk. But I'm not so familiar with ru-wiki, and each Wikipedia as its own set of rules, so whether I agree with the new version on ru-wiki or not is kind of irrelevant. Those editors who know the ru-wiki's policies and guidelines should discuss it there and try to come to some ageement about it. Sorry I can't be of more help. Mathglot (talk) 03:14, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks, dear Mathglot. The best, DarDar (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Title[edit]

Just going to throw this out there, but given the lede, shouldn't the title be the plural Crises of the Late Middle Ages given that this article focuses on multiple events? briardew (talk) 12:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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