Talk:Kingdom of Soissons

message: I am having a trouble attempting to answer the above question I had in mind. The articles including this and elsewhere mentions Domain of Soissons as being the last Roman enclave within Roman Gaul but it was never made clear if this is also the last Roman enclave of all within former Roman Empire. Is there any other Roman enclaves like this beyond Gaul at that point in the history? Just need to clear that up. Thanks. --Legion 23:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the last within the territory of the Western Empire, unless your definition includes the Romano-British or that Odoacer was governing Italy for Zeno. Kuralyov 00:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Define Roman? There was a Byzantine enclave in Spain in the 6th century and of course in Italy until the late 11th. Sardinia and Corsica were Byzantine until at least the 8th century. Srnec 04:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But those weren't established until the campaigns of Belisarius and Narses, a century after the overthrow of the Western empire. Kuralyov 15:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But the question concerned the term "Roman" and the Empire was always a unity governed in halves, never two distinct empires. The "fall of the Western Roman Empire" really only refers to the theoretical reunion of the two halves and the rule by barbarians of whatever in the West remained in allegiance to the emperor. Rome never ceased to acknowledge itself as part of the Roman Empire. Not in 476 or at any other date that I am aware (before the modern age). Belisarius and Narses were Romans and the territory they conquered was considered to be part of the Empire by right. They were Roman enclaves. Srnec 17:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last Roman enclave within Gaul or simply all of former Roman empire? 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
*Oppose while later and non-Roman sources do refer to it as a kingdom, there is a persistent scholarly doubt that it would have been called a kingdom at the time, at least if Syagrius shared the old Roman rejection of the name of "king". "Domain" is a modern term, generally used in modern scholarship, it explicitly avoids that controversy and may therefore be (marginally) better than either "Kingdom" or "Roman Kingdom". Calling it the "Kingdom of Soissons" would also cause (slight) potential confusion with the Merovingian version, which definitely was a kingdom.
We aren't using bibliometry to make decisions for us, but it may be relevant that I find 193,000 Google results for "Domain of Soissons" and 103,000 for "Kingdom of Soissons", which would also include the Merovingian creation. "Roman Kingdom of Soissons" brings up 26,000. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:52, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: *Try Google Book and Scholar searches and exclude results derived from Wikipedia. You will see that the term "domain" is very rare, while "(Roman) kingdom" is quite common. We should call it what our most reliable sources call it. Srnec (talk) 00:23, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

text: *Gregory and the Liber historiae Francorum both call Aegidius "king". Penny MacGeorge's essay "Syagrius and the Kingdom of Soissons" in Late Roman Warlords is unabashed in using the term "kingdom" to describe Syagrius' realm. It is Edward James who wants to restrict it and whom she cites using scare quotes around the term. Here is James's paper, in which it is clear that the dominant term for Syagrius' region is "kingdom" (royaume), although James wants to change this. "Domain" is an unfortunate Wikipedian neologism. Srnec (talk) 18:35, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I was simply observing that even the most favourable sources used caution (if you look at p. 111 "Roman kingdom" does appear in scare quotes; that said, after having taken the book in hand I've got to give you it's even more favourable than I remembered). As for Aegidius, remember we are spoken of sources quite far from the events (and at most it has been quibbled if he could have been king of the Franks, not certainly in a territorial entity). The word "king" (rex) is very charged in Roman tradition, and it is hard to immagine a Roman office-holder, for this the PLRE doesn't even consider it regarding Aegidius (and mentions to refute his Frank kingship).Aldux (talk) 22:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There is room to doubt the ascription of royal status to both Syagrius and his realm, but the article needs to be title something—and we can't just make it up. The earliest and most important sources lead us to believe, perhaps mistakenly, that Syagrius was king over a kingdom. That should be our starting point, we can nuance it and critique the primary sources in the article, but we cannot just decide to call it something far more anachronistic (since not one primary sources uses it!). Srnec (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey