Talk:Cædmon

message: Cleaned up a number of details in this entry.  Here's the original for reference:
Caedmon is one of only two Anglo-Saxon poets whose names are known. According to Bede, writing in the 7th century, Caedmon was a cow-herd at a Yorkshire monastery, who was unable to sing in public until he miraculously found himself able to sing the Creation, a poem of nine lines. Saint Hilda the abbess of the monastery, encouraged his new calling and asked him to join the monastery. Although many verses have been attributed to Caedmon, the original nine lines of alliterative Old English poetry are the only verses which can reliably be ascribed to him. User:209.89.227.156
:eplaced text with more detailed account. Incidentally fixed a number of small errors: number of manuscripts, number of named Anglo-Saxon poets, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.107.97.72 (talk • contribs) 
I just corrected the text of the poem given in the entry from a West Saxon text to the earliest, M-text--i.e. the one which the entry says is there. But I forgot to log in while doing it, so the edit is not under my name. Just thought I should make it clear who did it. Alarichall (talk) 19:55, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing 

message: Don't know who wrote this article, but they deserve some sort of recognition for one of the best articles I've ever read on Wikipedia. Effortless prose, good sources, and worthy of being a featured article. Fergananim
:To echo that, yeah, I came across this just now and I was very impressed. Great stuff. [User:Everyking|Everyking]] 08:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article recommendation 

message: We allready have a lengthy professional-quality article about the hymn which is integral to the Cædmon article and does not make sense to separate (footnotes, bibliography etc). Cædmon's Hymn was created after this article was created, an article fork, and is a stub. I suggest Cædmon's Hymn redirect to Cædmon - either that or someone create a proper article out of  Cædmon's Hymn that is better than the current content in Cædmon - but we cant leave it like it is as a forked article. --Stbalbach 23:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[Cædmon's Hymn]] into [[Cædmon]] 

message: I wonder if some readers might find the following format for the hymn and its transliteration into contemporary English easier to follow:
The following text has been transcribed from M (mid-8th century; Northumbria). Text has been normalised to show modern punctuation and line- and word-division:
Nu scylun hergan    hefaenricaes uard 
metudæs maecti    end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur—    sue he uundra gihuaes   
eci dryctin    or astelidæ
he aerist scop    aelda barnum 
heben til hrofe    haleg scepen 
tha middungeard    moncynnæs uard 
eci dryctin    æfter tiadæ 
firum foldu    frea allmectig
Now must we honour the guardian of heaven,
the might of the architect, and his purpose,
the work of the father of glory[34] — as he, the eternal lord, established the beginning of wonders.
He first created heaven as a roof
for the children of men.[35]
Then the guardian of mankind, the eternal lord,
afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands, for men: he, almighty god.[36]
Polaris999 07:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The current display in the article is very difficult to follow. A side-by-side text of original and translation with each line intact such as you have done would be vastly preferred. In my very humble opinion, each line in modern English should mirror the Old English as closely as possible. This would mean an almost word-for-word translation. Moreover, in this modern age, there's no real reason not to present all the versions extant which could be done in a separate article, as suggested in the section above. I don't happen to have access to all twenty-plus versions at the moment and apparently there is some disagreement about the importance of a separate article like that, however. Nodoremi 08:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the multiple versions, this is what Wikisource is for. Short texts are sometimes ok in Wikipedia (in particular with commentary), but Wikisource is used for archiving primary source texts. -- Stbalbach 16:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks! I was unaware of it. What a great thing.Nodoremi 17:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: In any case it would be a good idea to use a line-for-line translation. Nodoremi 23:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative format for the hymn 

message: Congratulations to all the editors who have worked to make Caedmon a featured article. Green Giant 23:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article 

message: I find it slightly odd that the introduction to this article presents Bede's account of Cædmon's life as though it were reliable and undisputable historical fact.  Might it not be sensible to introduce some kind of qualifying "according to Bede" or "according to tradition" into the first paragraph?  — Haeleth Talk 09:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a given that a 8th century source is not the same as a 21st century source, this is true in every medieval article on Wikipedia.. adding qualifiers like "according to tradition" adds an unknown element for the reader, as if there is debate about the accuracy of the account, that there may be factual reason to doubt Bede, contradictory evidence. Also it does say "His story is told to us in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("History of the English church") by St. Bede". -- Stbalbach 12:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historicity 

message: I would like to know, is there something about the Christian rock band Caedmon's Call? This band is named after the man who this article is about.--Chili14TalkContribs 00:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Caedmon's Call]] 

message: Doesn't an article with a non-standard character in the title deserve a proper IPA description to help out those who don't know how to pronounce it?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  04:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried my hardest to write up the pronunciation for Ca--edmon, but I'm no linguistic specialist: just a part-time participant.  I would appreciate corrections.  --This1trik4u 05:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed this one up. I believe it is now correct for Anglo-Saxon. --Oldak Quill 11:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at the phonetic representation of the text of Cædmon's Song, I note that in every case Old English "sc" has been represented phonetically as [sk]. However, this should in fact be pronounced like MnE "sh" or phonetic〈ʃ〉. Almost every "sk" word in English is derived from Old Norse, not Old English. This is borne out by the audio clip, where in each case the sound is 〈ʃ〉.Gruffling (talk) 20:34, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA pron 

message: Three out of the four sources cited in Note 1 link to nothing. Who are these sources?  zafiroblue05 | Talk 05:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They aren't sources, they are names. If you read the note, You will see it begins "The twelve named Anglo-Saxon poets are..." This is then followed by names. The references are all blue. dpod 04:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: My apologies. I've added the missing references.dpod 04:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note 1 

message: Didn't we already feature this article on 9 May 2006? I remember finding out about the article on the main page. JIP | Talk 08:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The main page FA for 9 May 2006 was Pink Floyd; looking at the history of bolding of articles on Wikipedia:Featured articles, I did not see any evidence that this article already got featured in the past. Schutz 09:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the edit history, I edited it on May 9 to put in :Category:Digimon. I don't know anything about English historical poets so I can't have heard of Cædmon on my own. I must have seen a link to it in some prominent place in Wikipedia. JIP | Talk 10:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It was on FAC in May, if that helps. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article already featured? 

message: There's an even more specific date that sometimes gets an airing - 11 February 680.  See  and similar websites.  Do we need to say anything about this, if only to deny there's any historical support for this or any other date?  --  JackofOz (talk) 03:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Revisited

message: Adding the Anglo-Saxon poets was a good idea, but Caedmon is still widely seen as the first English poet as well. He's on P.1 of the Norton, for example.
dpod 06:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English/Anglo-Saxon poets 

message: I've removed the reference to saint. Bede doesn't say he was and suggestions that he was a saint have recently been shown--or at least argued--to be wrong by Eric Stanley in N&Q: Stanley, Eric "St. Caedmon" Notes and Queries 143 (1998): 4-5.
dpod 06:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been tidying up the Anglo-Saxon categories, hence the recent movements on this front. I have removed Caedmon from Anglo-Saxon people, because all A-S people have now been put into appropriate sub-categories, in this case Anglo-Saxon poets. I'm not all that happy with leaving him in English poets, but if people will expect to find him there, then he'd better stay in. Along the same lines, although probably not a saint, users may be confused if he is not listed in the A-S saints category. I have therefore reinstated this, while adding the info concerning the unlikelihood of his saintliness to the article itself. I hope this is acceptable to everyone. Walgamanus 08:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. dpod 00:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorties: Saints, etc 

message: I'm removing the link to the current on line britannica: seems to have the wrong article.
dpod 03:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Britannica 

message: Regarding this YouTube video . It is a video advertisement for a new book (book trailer) which goes against the guidelines of WP:EL. If it can be trimmed out, so only the portion where the hymn is sung, it could be added to the external links section. -- Stbalbach 19:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  YouTube video 

message: I endeavoured to follow the audio link currently in the article in order to listen to a reading of Caedmon's Hymn.  Unfortunately, Windows Media Player did not recognised the codex.  I located a reading by J. B. Bessinger, Jr. @  accessed 20 September 2007.
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 05:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Audio of Caedmon's Hymn 

message: I am adding a translation from [] source - it seems to be better than the current \ / (talk) 02:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Translation 

message: I'm going to fix up the IPA. I assume that the non-IPA letter [þ] is supposed to be [ð]? If not, please correct me. kwami (talk) 01:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA 

message: In two instances the section titled “Bede's account” seems to depart from the account Bede provides.
1. “Bede's account” calls Caedmon “a lay brother who worked as a herdsman at the monastery,”  apparently conflating different parts of Bede's narrative.  Bede does indicate that Caedmon was a herdsman, but that seems to have been before he entered the monastery in any capacity.  It was only after his life-changing dream that he was invited into the monastery.  The Wikipedia article, in contrast, has him already working in the monastery and simply being ordered to take monastic vows after the abbess heard his poems (or hymns, since they were sung).
What Bede tells us is that Caedmon “in habitu seculari” had arrived at a mature age without ever singing a song.  While “habitu seculari” might be construed in more than one way, for me the context of the narrative indicates something like “worldly condition” or “secular life.”  He may have been working on land owned by the monastery (though Bede does not state that), but there is nothing to indicate that he was working in the monastery itself.  On the morning after his dream, remembering everything he had sung, he came to “villicum, qui sibi praeerat,” that is, to a nearby village.  It was from there that he was ordered to be taken to the abbess.  And when she had heard him sing, “secularem illum habitum relinquere et monachicum suscipere propositum docuit,” where “illum... docuit” means “she instructed him [to].”  Again considering context, “secularem...habitum relinquere” would be “to abandon his worldly life.”  As for “monachicum suscipere propositum,” that might be rendered “to take up the tasks (or accept the goals) of monastic life” --and maybe Bede does mean “vows” when he writes “propositum” here.  In any case, the clause that follows is pretty clear: “susceptumque in monasterium cum omnibus suis fratrum cohorti associavit,” that is, “once he had been accepted into the monastery, she with all her community joined him to the company of brothers” (emphasis added).  In short, nothing in the narrative suggests that Caedmon had been a “brother,” lay or otherwise, or part of the monastery community, up until then.
2. The Wikipedia article refers to feasting, singing and harp-playing monks, and this seems to be an innovation.  Certainly Bede does not call the companions Caedmon left at the feast monks. This second departure from the source narrative, however, follows readily from the first. 
Maybe these discrepancies are only apparent.  If so, I would welcome an explanation.  Otherwise it seems that “Bede's account” should be corrected so that it accurately represents Bede's account.  As a nonspecialist, I would leave that to those better qualified, perhaps participants in one of the relevant Wiki projects.Paleodoc (talk) 20:57, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Bede's account" versus Bede's account 

message: I just added a link to a verse-translation of C.'s hymn. It seemed quite apposite, since there wasn't one already.
Szfski (talk) 10:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another translation 

message: For an undergraduate assignment, myself and two other English majors were charged with finding a Wikipedia page that addressed a topic related to our study of Old and Middle English literature, and then attempting to revise or contribute to it as best we could. When evaluating the page on Cædmon, we all agreed that--even though the piece was well written, researched, documented, and deserving of its stature as a featured Wikipedia article--the page serves mainly as a biography and historical reference page for the poet himself and not necessarily his poetry. We then consulted with other English students who had visited the page in the past in search of information pertaining specifically to Cædmon’s Hymn, and discovered that they too had found the article of little use when it came to the literary study of the Hymn itself. When we consulted with our professor, he too agreed with our observations and we set out to create a new Wikipage that focused specifically on the Hymn itself. Our goal in creating a separate article for the Hymn was to begin the development of a page that would cater to the majority of individuals who would research Cædmon for information pertaining to the actual content and significance of the text he created from a literary standpoint. In the last two weeks that we’ve worked on it, we have attempted to expand on the Hymn’s textual content, structure, verse form, translation process, literary significance, and provided a chart that shows its Old English, Latin, and modern English translations (which was absent from the Cædmon page when we began but has since been added). We had also hoped (but were unable to) provide a more significant amount of material tending to its editorial, publication, and manuscript history (due to time constraints). We were aware of the problems addressed on the discussion board about someone having poorly attempted to create a separate page for the Hymn and it having been removed, but still do not see why a poetic work of such significance to English literature does not deserve its own page if it were properly done. Since encyclopedias are by definition designed to contain an “exhaustive repertory of information on all the branches of some particular art or department of knowledge (Oxford English Dictionary),” and taking into consideration that there are numerous Wikipedia articles which provide biographical information about an author and an overview of their works along with subsidiary wikipages that supply a more in depth analysis of their individual compositions, why there would be any conflict of interest in creating separate pages for Cædmon and his Hymn. In light of the fact that Wikipedia is an online resources that does not have to be concerned with the size and length of its contents as a physical encyclopedia would, why not make it as functional and comprehensive as possible for anyone and everyone who would reference it? Below is a link to a page we created specifically about the Hymn, we are aware of its limitations since we had little time to create it and are inexperienced with using Wikipedia, but we would hope (even if you choose to destroy this article) that anyone who is capable of doing so would help support, and participate in, the creation of a more comprehensive page catering to the literary characteristics and significance that Cædmon’s Hymn deserves. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Christian_Hymn
(we are also aware of the inaccuracy of the current title, but when we attempted to publish the page, the system barred us from creating anything that had “Cædmon’s Hymn” in any part of the title)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by CaedmonEngLit (talk • contribs) 05:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi there, I'm a bit pressed for time, but let me just clarify that a separate article which addresses the different versions of the poem as literary creations in their own right, and which does a better job at it than the present article, is perfectly legitimate. Don't worry! The article should actually be at Cædmon's Hymn, its proper title, but that can be sorted later. There are some basic formatting issues which I will go through in a minute. Regards, Cavila (talk) 11:14, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's all I'm able do for now. Please make sure that every statement and claim you offer is cited to your sources. There's a taboo on WP:original research around here. Have to fly, Cavila (talk) 12:07, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

text: The old stub just became a redirect to this article. Because it has history behind it then you cannot move the other article directly to the title without deleting the original page. Probably best to histmerge the new article on top of the existing history that way the full history is preserved. Drop me a line if you want it done. Keith D (talk) 12:01, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readdressing the issue regarding the creation of a separate page for Cædmon’s ''Hymn''. 

message: This Featured article was promoted in 2006, and is not at FA standards.  There is a good deal of uncited text, and a MOS review is needed.  Unless someone is willing/able to bring this article to standard, it should be submitted to Featured article review. SandyGeorgia (Talk)  00:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I also do not like a fake medieval memorial as lead image. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:39, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article review needed 

message: Various sources indicate to me that Caedmon is venerated as a popularly-canonized saint in the Catholic Church. I would happily add the saint infobox to the page, but I suspect that starting a discussion is the proper opening move. — Asgardiator  16:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: He is listed in Farmer's Dictionary of Saints, although the term popular canonization is not used in the Canonization article and I do not think that it makes sense. Popularly regarded might be a better term. If you want to add an infobox, I think you would need to check whether he is recognised by the Anglicans and Orthodox, not just list Catholics. Also, the article says that his sainthood is disputed and it would be helpful to check the sources on this. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:31, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Veneration in the Catholic Church