Talk:Penda of Mercia

message: I removed this line:
"but after the defeat of the Welsh king at Oswald at "Hefenfeith" in 644, Mercia seems to have been for a time subject to Northumbria." 
Oswald of Northumbria defeated Cadwallon of Gwynedd at Hefenfeith near Hadrian's Wall in 633 or 635. Penda and the Mercians were unwilling allies of Cadwallon. Penda killed Oswald in 642. Until 644 Penda ruled southern Northumberland. In 645 Penda overthrew Cenwalh and ruled Wessex for three years. When could Northumbria have ruled Mercia after 644? Rmhermen 16:58, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
:Kirby in The Earliest English Kings seems to think that Bede is overstating Oswiu's position as top dog of the area in the 640s, but the evidence either way is very scanty; 1911EB was probably oversimplifying. What it meant to "rule" in any of these situations is hard to know, since there were lots of subkings and overkings and never an explanation of what that actually meant. Stan 18:34, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: I removed this line

message: We follow the 1911 in saying that the AS Chronicle is probably wrong about his age based on the ages of his children but as far as I can see we never establish the ages of his children either here or in the three articles we have on his children. Do we have any reason for this claim about Penda's age? Rmhermen 04:55, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
:Bede calls Wulfhere "a youth" (book III, ch. XXIV) three years after Penda's death, and the circumstances in which he came to power (Bede's describes him being installed in power by two rebel leaders, after being kept in hiding, and does not seem to imply Wulfhere's active participation) do seem to suggest he was still pretty young. We might guess that Penda's other son, Aethelred, was younger still, since he became king after Wulfhere's death, and we know he lived until 716, which would make him over 60 even if he was just an infant at Penda's death, and it's pretty unlikely an 80 year old man would have such young children. It has been suggested that the claim he was 50 years old in 626 may actually be a mistake meant to apply to the time of his death in 655, and that does seem plausible. Everyking 11:30, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: His age

message: I removed the suggestion that his name was the origin of the word penny - since cognates of the word exist in other Germanic languages (German Pfennig, Swedish penning etc.) it is highly unlikely. Hedgehog 11:48, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but it is considered a possibility, and I actually left it out until I was specifically asked by someone to include it. If you can add it back and at the same time shed a little more light on the subject (without getting too far off track) that would be great. Everyking 04:27, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if it's considered a possibility by anyone who actually knows anything about English etymology - while a Google search for 'penny' and 'Penda' comes up with loads of sites, none of them seem to give any sources. Neither the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology nor Duden's Herkunftswörterbuch suggest it, and it seems unlikely that it would have been borrowed into Old Saxon or Old High German from Old English (although it might have been borrowed in Old Norse). Its forms in the various early Germanic languages suggest a common West Germanic *panning, *paning or *panding, which look rather less like 'Penda' and suggest that it was probably a loanword. The ODEE suggests a link with pawn, which may be from Latin pannus, piece of cloth, while Duden suggests a a derivation from early forms of the word pan. 'Penda' seems pretty unlikely though. Hedgehog 09:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Penny 

message: 50 (!) footnotes, most of which seem to be refering to very simple and uncontroversial facts, is definetly over the top and don't really add to the otherwise high standards of the article. Could someone do something about this?
Peter Isotalo 23:54, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really. They could be slightly excessive, but what you've got to understand is the obscurity of the subject...there is very little about Penda that is certain. So, I think, the more a subject is lost in the mist of time, the more you need to cite historians, to avoid stating as fact things that may just be interpretations. Also as a general principle I do like thorough referencing in Wikipedia articles; it helps deflect the most common charge against us, which is inaccuracy. Everyking 04:27, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnote bonanza 

message: Penda fought battles, two really notable ones - where these to just get power and control over land and people or to fight against the spread of Christianity? Or a bit of both? Robert C Prenic 08:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably much more the former, at least in my opinion. It's unknown to what degree, if any, he was motivated by opposition to Christianity, but several things we do know suggest this shouldn't be seen as the primary factor in events: most importantly, Bede says that Penda tolerated the preaching of Christianity within Mercia; there's also the intermarriage of his children with the (Christian) Bernician line and his alliances with the (Christian) British. The latter two things could have been done in spite of his feelings toward Christianity, due to strategic imperative, but it is difficult to reconcile his tolerance of Christian preaching with the idea of a ruler fiercely opposed to the spread of Christianity. Everyking 07:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Penda against Christianity

message: It may be worthwhile to make some comment about the possible connections of Penda's family with the British.  None of the names of Penda, his father Pybba and his son Peada have very convincing Anglo-Saxon etymologies.  The name Penda itself would seem to be connected to the Welsh "pen" meaning head or chief and Pybba might derive from the Welsh "pybyr" meaning "strong-stout." Another "pen" name occurs in the Mercian royal family, St. Guthlac's father was called Penwalh; this could be a composite Welsh-English name meaning "Head-Welshman."  Penda's wife's name has a "cyn" element which though meaning "kin" in A-S could alternatively be derived from "cuno" meaning "hound" in Brythonic (many cuno names in the early Welsh upper classes eg Maglocunus (Maelgwn) and Cuneglassus (mentioned by Gildas)).  Finally there is the sub-king Merewalh, another son of Penda, whose undoubtedly A-S name means "Illustrious Welshman."
Penda seems to have been a ferocious and generally astute warlord who eventually became the overlord of a number of peoples, some of which were undoubtedly mainly Welsh-speaking, and in doing so laid the foundations of a major insular state.  Given the evidence of the personal names his family may well have had a rather ethnically mixed origin, like that of Cerdic of Wessex, and the identification with a purely Anglian origin may have been attributed later.
Urselius 16:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This all seems very improbable, and a single reference to something written over a century ago by Sir John Rhys is not really sufficient for radical claims in a featured article. Starting with the obvious, negative evidence of Bede: Bede does not say that Penda was a Briton. And the negative evidence piles up: D.P. Kirby doesn't say that Penda was a Briton, Barbara Yorke doesn't say that he was a Briton, and Frank Stenton doesn't remark upon his British origins. Can you provide modern references which make the case for Penda's British origins? Angus McLellan  (Talk) 11:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

text: You're assuming I disagree with the idea, but I don't. What I disagree with is including it here. Adding comments implying a British origin of Penda's name may be blindingly obvious, but until some of the Anglo-Saxonists take their heads out of the sand and rethink things based on more modern ideas of the origins of Anglo-Saxon England, we should not be aiming to lead the field. Nobody else writing about Penda appears to think his name is worth remarking on, so neither should we. Wikipedia doesn't do original thinking, not even through hints to the reader. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 16:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

text: That seems fine to me. As regards the point about Rhys and older sources, while it may seem reasonable, it is something of a slippery slope. Sticking to modern sources means that we don't get swamped with Victorian imaginings on royal genealogies and the like. Not so bad here, but in some other areas of the Insular Early Middle Ages there is an awful lot of old tat on google books and the like which could be used to "source" discredited claims which would be unhelpful in Wikipedia articles. It's not always easy to find a specific refutation of such things, even when they are clearly discredited and no longer mentioned in modern works. If you're ever at a loose end, I did some work on Wulhere and Æthelred, but there's still a lot needs doing. Is there anything like a plausible argument that Mrs Penda, Cynewise, was a kinswoman of Cynegils? I thought I saw one in print but can't put my hands on one. I'm not aware of Cyne-names being at all common outside of Mercia and Wessex. Likewise, -walh names seem more common there than elsewhere. Time for some amateur statistical anthroponymy perhaps, aided by the wonderful Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 00:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Penda and the British Connection 

message: Pages 125-126 the authors of the work below describe the members of a Northumbrian [spiritual] brotherhood who have Celtic names, described in the ninth century Liber vitae Dunelmensis, the name Penda occurs as a British name in this list. This is the first instance of the name Penda being used for another person than the Mercian king I have come across. 
Filppula, M., Klemola, J., Paulasto, H., and Pitkanen, H., (2008) English and Celtic in Contact, Routledge. 
There is a preview of this book available online via Google Book Search.Urselius (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Penda unequivocally described as a British name 

message: I've cut the following two sentences:
* "Oswald's moves toward alliance with the West Saxons, who occupied territory to the south of the Mercians, could be seen as an attempt to counter Mercian power."
* "This may indicate a special hereditary claim over southern Mercia by Penda's line that it did not have over the north."
Both are reasonable, but I've been unable to source them.  The latter was at the end of a paragraph about Penda's kingship of southern Mercia; the relevant source (Kirby) doesn't get close enough to saying what the cut sentence says for it to be a source for the statement.  The first statement is also reasonable, but I can't find anything specific about Oswald making alliances; the sources I have all simply talk about the conflict between Penda and the West Saxons, and not about any Northumbrian involvement, known or guessed.
If either can be sourced, please add them back. Mike Christie (talk) 00:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two statements cut 

message: I have grave concerns over the Germanic etymology presented for the name Penda, one supporting link is to a page of unpublished matter of uncertain origins the other is to an online etymology which gives a putative West Germanic word which is unrecorded or an ultimately Latin origin!
The whole is a circular argument - Penda is an English king therefore his name has to be Germanic, therefore there must be a word of Germanic origins to fit - let's use something not recorded in Anglo-Saxon writing, that might even be of Latin origins but possibly, by reconstruction, might have existed in Proto-West Germanic. This smacks of desperation.
I do not think these are nearly adequate as supporting material for a featured article.Urselius (talk) 08:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Germanic etymology? 

message: There is no direct statement concerning a number of remarkable facts about Penda. He was a warlike pagan Anglo-Saxon king who never fought the British, his recorded enemies are all Anglo-Saxon and throughout his career he was always allied to British kings. All his major battles were fought alongside British warbands against Anglo-Saxon armies.Urselius (talk) 08:14, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remarkable omission 

message: Penda (name) could be a standalone page. As long as the topic is covered here, 
:Despite the formulaic claim to descent from Woden, some suggest that none of the names of Penda, his father Pybba and his son Peada have very convincing Anglo-Saxon etymologies
is rather dubious editorializing. The descent claim from Woden has nothing to do with the name's etymology, come on, Germanic etymology only became accessible to study in the 19th century, and it isn't "despite" the medieval claims that "some claim" Celtic origin.
THe fact of the matter is that "some claim" Celtic and "others claim" Germanic derivation, and both have reasonable evidence, and the upshot is that the communis opinio is simply that the etymology has not been explained satisfactorily. --dab (𒁳) 20:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The descent from Woden, if accurate in its later parts, would indicate a Continental Germanic origin for Penda's ancestors.  If, however, it is inaccurate then the names of Penda and his father could be Brythonic because these persons had native British ancestry or connections. There is a logical connection. Of course we know that the British gave certain Anglo-Saxon leaders nicknames in Welsh, one early Northumbrian king was known as Flamddywyn (sp?) "Flame-bringer" to his British enemies. Therefore Penda (from pen- "head", "chief", "eminent", etc. in Welsh) could have been given the name he is known by by the Welsh, without having been of Welsh extraction himself. Also Pybba looks suspiciously like the Welsh word pybyr meaning "strong" "ardent". Urselius (talk) 10:14, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Name

message: I propose the following: PEN is in fact BEN and BEN is the contraction of BEREN (bears or bear's). -DA is DAG or day. With 'day' is meant daylight, brilliant. So, his name was "brilliant as a bear" or 'shiny bear' or 'clearly a bear' (ref: voornamen etymologisch woordenboek, Vd Schaar, 1964 - the name 'Penda' does not occur, the parts do). The contraction of 'beren' to 'bern' (Bern = capital of Switzerland) and the attested names Ben, Bein, Benne, Biene, Bintje (name given to a potato) and more, names of prevailing Fries origin with reduction of 'r'. DA from 'dag' is also frequently shortened to da, di, dei, from pgm *daga.
At the time nobody cared about how a name was written down, providing everybody knew who the person was, hence the P(en) for a B. That is undoubtedly the case here. So, the name is duly Germanic. Michael042 (talk)   — Preceding undated comment added 08:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: And your Reliable Source for this is? The TP are not for original research theorizing, but for the discussion of how best to utilize Reliable Sources for the betterment of the article. HammerFilmFan (talk) 06:47, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology of Penda

message: I quote from the article:
"Others have suggested that the name Penda comes from an unrecorded, and therefore putative, Old English word meaning "pledge".
This assertion is false, or at least it is misleading. It suggests that scholars investigating the origins of the name Penda have found Old English etymologies. This is true of the Celtic etymology asserted earlier in the article - the citations here are to scholarly works of direct relevance. The citations that the above sentence links to, are obviously sources that wikipedia editors have sought out in order to uphold their opinions. The sources are related to the etymology of Penda only indirectly, they are not from scholarly works that were directly investigating the etymology of the name. 
This constitutes original research and is poor stuff for a FA to contain. Urselius (talk) 10:33, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Germanic etymology of Penda 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: One source states that the Worcester Cathedral Cloister stained windows "were designed and executed in the 1930s by Archibald John Davies (1877-1953)". Can anyone confirm this? If this is the artist we would do well to credit him. I think there shouldn't be a copyright problem since the UK has a broad freedom of panorama. Haukur (talk) 03:04, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Pevsner (ed. of 2007, p. 697), there were two artists for these stained glass vignettes: James Eadie-Reid (1868–1928) did most of the east and north sides in 1916–23, while Davies did the west side from 1930 to some time in the 1940s. Eadie-Reid was apparently widely active in ecclesiastical stained glass, like Davies; he designed for the Gateshead Stained Glass Co. We have a series of images of the complete windows on Commons that do ascribe many to Eadie-Reid, but we obviously can't just rely on that ascription. However, the V&A has designs by him for some Worcester vignettes, for example the consecration of Diuma, but not including the death of Penda. Those may suffice to determine whether the Penda scene is on one of the two sides he worked on; or a visit, or another publication. I didn't see mention of the different sides in the pdf, but I think the V&A and Pevsner together cast doubt on the accuracy of the pdf when it ascribes all the scenes to Davies. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:51, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Very interesting! We'll get to the bottom of this... Haukur (talk) 18:01, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artist behind stained glass depiction?