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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

The Religion of Pre-Norman England.

I feel as though there needs to be a discussion on this. As I had provided sourced evidence for England not being in communion with Rome before the Norman Invasion. Gunkclugpug (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personal opinion. Not supported by academia. Brother Jerome (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is not personal opinion and is supported by historians on the topic, look at the non Orthodox Sources cited. --Gunkclugpug (talk) 22:37, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is also clear that you are editing the article based on your personal opinion. You have provided no sources that England was in communion with Rome during the Norman invasion. In your eyes as a catholic you are trying to claim a Church that was in Schism from Rome as being catholic, this makes no sense. This would be like (in your eyes) claiming someone in Schism with Rome today is actually Catholic. --Gunkclugpug (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary lack of communion does not mean Eastern Orthodoxy. This is claiming that implying that England before the East–West_Schism belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is a personal opinion. Academia regards the religion in England before the Schism as Catholicism, as every page with a pre-schism Catholic kingdom shows. Brother Jerome (talk) 12:09, 23 December 2024 UTC [refresh]

Since when is not being in communion enough to be Eastern Orthodox? Are Protestants Orthodox now? Mechamutoh (talk) 00:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Being that prior to the excommunications in 1054, a distinct Eastern Orthodox Church did not exist apart from the greater Chalcedonian church, how is there any justification for England being apart of it? Furthermore, a good example of continued communion between Rome and the English church, as well as the submission of the latter to the former, around this time would be St. Dunstan. Andreas Zell (talk) 00:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's a pretty decent article on Pope Gregory's missions to Anglo Saxon England. Could be a good place to start https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_mission

Comes.amanuensis (talk) 06:37, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pope Gregory I is part of the Byzantine Papacy, as Rome itself was part of the Byzantine Empire. Dimadick (talk) 05:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 April 2020

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The "succeeded by" should say Kingdom of Great Britain as opposed to just Great Britain, which refers to the island, not the former kingdom. C.monarchist28 (talk) 02:49, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To editor C.monarchist28:

done. P.I. Ellsworth ed. ^put'r there 01:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval period"

This is a rather Anglocentric view. England was irrelevant in much of European stage & history until around the English Civil War (or maybe the Elizabethan era but that's kinda stretching it in my opinion & even then this era kicked in late during medieval times). British dominance really only started in the late 18th-century(-ish), though France (& perhaps Prussia & Russia) was stronger than Britain & even Austria/the Habsburgs was arguably more powerful than Britain for much of the 18th-century — Preceding unsigned comment added by Producer Richter (talk • contribs) 10:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Date

Hi all, the dates of the kingdom in the infobox are currently given as 927-1707, with the dates of the Commonwealth listed below (1649-1660). Would it not make more sense to list the dates of the Kingdom as 927-1649, 1660-1707 to reflect the fact that the kingdom was not in existence during the commonwealth years? Please let me know what you think! Vesuvio14 (talk) 11:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that, as always, we have to be informed by reliable sources. If the tendency amongst sources is to date the Kingdom of England as all the way from 927-1707 then we should also do so. If instead, they date it as you suggest, then I would agree with a change. I'll have a look at my academic sources I have at hand and see, but always welcome if others have sources to provide as well. Good question! SamWilson989 (talk) 13:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

i guess england wasnt powerful at the time 95.24.0.205 (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OOPS WRONG TOPIC 95.24.0.205 (talk) 15:17, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

12 July 927

This article claims that the kingdom of England was created on 12 July 927. That is an absurdly dogmatic statement. The creation of England didn't happen on a single day, it was a gradual process that happened over several decades, during the reigns of Alfred, Edward and Athelstan. This article should reflect that. See the article List of English monarchs for a fuller explanation (and also the discussions on its talk page, archived pages 5 and 6). Richard75 (talk) 17:22, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What date should we start with instead? 886? Faren29 (talk) 10:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that rather than fix on any one specific date, we should say that it occurred over the period 886 to 927. Richard75 (talk) 10:30, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How do we put that into the info box without it being too messy? Faren29 (talk) 10:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's already too messy! I think we could strip a lot of that out. Richard75 (talk) 12:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Should we put Alfred as the first monarch? Faren29 (talk) 23:20, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think so. At the very least we should say that opinions differ and that arguments can be made for him, his son and his grandson. Richard75 (talk) 23:32, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a few rough edits. Feel free to add on and/or reword. Faren29 (talk) 13:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

12 July 927 again

Here we go again...! There are some countries, like the United States, that can point to a specific date when they came into being, like 4 July 1776, because they declared independence for example. That doesn't mean that every country can do that. England was not created overnight; it emerged as a result of a gradual process that took decades, generations even. Several kingdoms gradually came under the rule of one king, during the course of more than one reign. But some people are trying to use Wikipedia to assert that England popped into being on 12 July 927, as if on 11 July nobody had ever heard of it. An assertion like that would certainly require some reliable sources. To be as clear as possible: I am not saying that England appeared in any particular earlier year either. I'm only saying it wasn't created from scratch out of nothing in a single moment by the swearing of a few oaths in 927. 927 is perhaps the latest date on which this process may be said to have been completed by, but that is not the same thing. Richard75 (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A viewpoint you are entitled to but will also require sources from modern historians of the Anglo-Saxon period. 141.163.120.3 (talk) 02:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is, there have been literally hundreds of high-quality publications, and entire books - several very famous and some less famous books - written on precisely this subject, and a great many of them are not in agreeance. Academic consensus on this issue is almost impossible to establish because of the very nature of the time and place: the Angles, Saxons, and Norse left very little in the way of written records, and the Celtic/Brittanic polities were not much better.

Unfortunately, a bunch of Wikipedians appear to have taken upon themselves to write a little DIY narrative history, and have left this - presumably very commonly read and utilised article by schoolchildren all across the globe - article in such a state that it is as misinformative as it is informative. Decolonizetheinternet (talk) 04:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I saw that date and phrase "The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927" and immediately clicked on the Talk Page to see if anyone was as surprised as I was (as this particular time and place in history I happen to have a reasonable degree of expertise on). Thankfully, there was. To take just this first sentence:

"The Kingdom of England" is an anachronism for 927 AD, no such Kingdom existed, as the concept of "England" was still developing at that time. Æthelstan (c. 894-939) by the date given, was King of Wessex (a West Saxon polity), Mercia (an Anglic polity), York (hitherly a still largely Norse, or rather Hiberno-Norse, polity), and the "Old North" Kingdom of Strathclyde - however the latter two (and more) still very much continued to exist after 927, with Strathclyde in particular at least formally still Brittonic (Cumbric), not "English".

"sovereign state" is an odd phrase to use for Æthelstan's realm. As opposed to what? Being a vassal of another Kingdom, as the Kingdom of England established by William the Conqueror in 1066 was (a vassal of the Kingdom of France)? Did this "sovereign state" have full "sovereignty" over Strathclyde and Northumbria? Not to mention Lothian, Wales, the Cornish SW, and others?

"island of Great Britain" is what we can this landmass today, but only during the last few centuries. Æthelstan used the term Britanniæ (Latin for "Britain") at the time but it didn't include Alba/Caledonia (what we call Scotland).

"from 12 July 927" - All that happened on this date, was Owain of Strathclyde (or Owain ap Hywel of Gwen, or both, sources differ) pledged fealty to Æthelstan. But this was not a singular even, such pledges were made and broken to each other constantly in early medieval Britain and Ireland, and soon after they were at war again, with Owain and his son still calling themselves Kings - as did the the Norse Kings of York. The date and even is only significant in retrospect, if one were looking for a precursor to the Kingdom of England as we now know it, as it comes close to measuring up to the same territory. However both Strathclyde and York regained their independence shortly after, and none of the aforementioned Kingdoms came fully and permanently under one person's or one polity's rule until 1066.

In other words, the article appears to be jam-packed with anachronism and DIY history, and would require someone responsible to devote many hours of tedious labour to bring up to scratch. Decolonizetheinternet (talk) 04:46, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Decolonizetheinternet Please feel free to make a start. Richard75 (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Richard75: they can't, they're blocked. Polyamorph (talk) 16:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lol! Richard75 (talk) 17:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let's leave history to the historians. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. In history articles, we should just write about what historians say; if a historian said it, then there will be a reliable source for it. Anything else is just original research. Richard75 (talk) 16:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, if this was true then there would be historians saying it, and reliable sources and stuff. Wikipedia isn't the place for advancing fringe theories. Richard75 (talk) 21:40, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Roman Catholic religion

It's not really credible or even meaningful to say that England was a Roman Catholic country in 927, when the Great Schism didn't happen until 1054. Richard75 (talk) 16:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

True enough. There are no meaningful distinctions between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church before the East–West Schism.Dimadick (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Date

The date is incorrect, because we know for a fact that the Kingdom was founded in 927, and there are p lenty of reliable sources saying so. Blackmamba31248 (talk) 23:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know that for a fact, and where are these sources? Richard75 (talk) 10:35, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.openculture.com/2021/09/how-england-first-became-england-an-animated-history.html

https://www.thebritishmonarchy.co.uk/post/kings-of-england-before-1066#:~:text=Anglo%252DSaxon%2520England%2520was%2520early,927%E2%80%93939).

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-UK-Great-Britain-Whats-the-Difference/ (This one says 925, but it is rounded)

And the main answer when you look it up on Google. Your right, we don’t know for sure, but 927 is the most agreed upon date. Better to just say C. 927 instead of the extremly broad “Early 10th century” Blackmamba31248 (talk) 15:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those aren't very scholarly or serious sources though. One describes itself as "an animated history," one is just the British monarchy website which isn't even a history site per se, and the third is very basic (the first paragraph is just an explanation of the difference between England, Great Britain and the UK). An encyclopaedia should use better sources than that. Google isn't a source, it's just a search engine. I realise that "the early tenth century" is very broad, but then the evolution of England took a long time, over three kings' reigns. It didn't happen in a single year. Richard75 (talk) 15:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ninth century kings of Wessex up to the reign of Alfred the Great used the title king of the West Saxons.

This endured until 927, when Æthelstan conquered the last Viking stronghold, York, and adopted the title king of the English. 148.252.147.200 (talk) 20:59, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The kingdom of England was founded in 927

Ninth century kings of Wessex up to the reign of Alfred the Great used the title king of the West Saxons. This endured until 927, when Æthelstan conquered the last Viking stronghold, York, and adopted the title king of the English. 148.252.147.200 (talk) 08:11, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semiprotection

Page briefly semiprotected so this dates issue can be properly resolved via talkpage discussion rather than edit-warring. Apologies to any IP editors that have other unrelated edits to make: please consider using the editrequest tool to propose them while waiting for the protection to expire. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:27, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not sure why this is so disputed as if you look back through out the history of this article everyone was certain that it was the 927 that England was founded and it was Æthelstan that united the Anglo Saxons after conquering the last Viking kingdom and therefore

on the 12 July 927 the Anglo Saxons recognised Æthelstan as king of the English and I’ll show links to prove it

Special:BookSources/978-0-30-012535-1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038rkw9

https://history.org.uk/historian/resource/4971/aethelstan-the-first-king-of-england

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEImkSOl-0

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8487954/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HYEwoy1HSpU

https://www.discoveryuk.com/monarchs-and-rulers/who-was-the-first-king-of-england/

https://access.historyhit.com/videos/aethelstan-first-king-of-the-english

https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma9924556939702466&context=L&vid=44UOE_INST:44UOE_VU2&lang=en&search_scope=UoE&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=creator%2Cexact%2CBBC%20Worldwide%20Ltd.&facet=creator%2Cexact%2CBBC%20Worldwide%20Ltd. 148.252.145.118 (talk) 11:48, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most of those sources don't count as proper reliable sources. Two of them are actually the same source. One of them (Discovery) literally says "Asking who was the first king of England and who was the first ruler of England really depends on how ‘king’ is defined and also how ‘England’ is defined." Richard75 (talk) 20:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

886 or 927?

It wasn't until 927 that King Æthelstan adopted the title "King of the English" and conquered all of Englands land, and on his own wikipedia page it states "he was the first king over all Anglo-Saxons", whilst Alfred the Great was the first to use the title of King of the Anglo-Saxons, England hadn't yet been united due to Norse occupation of land in York and Northumbria, and it was his grandson (Æthelstan) who finished the unification by invading Jorvik (York) 2A0A:EF40:833:3901:20C5:5659:60EF:D978 (talk) 11:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's a controversial subject and it's been discussed many times before. Your point of view is valid, but the counter-argument is that although the Anglo-Saxons didn't control the Danelaw (York and other places under Danish occupation), that doesn't necessarily mean that England didn't exist yet, just that its borders were different. (We don't say the USA didn't exist until it reached its present borders in 1959.) The consensus (such as it is) is that England wasn't created in a single year, but over three generations, and we shouldn't give too much weight to what title a king chose to give himself, since the title King of the English just recognises a state of affairs which had been going on for decades in one way or another. Richard75 (talk) 12:37, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

its more just that following the final conquests, the title became "King of the English" from "King of the Anglo-Saxons" (not that theres a difference tbh), so until 927 there is no England because there was no king of england, but I dont have any sources for what the name of the kingdom was from 886-927 (wessex, england?), so can't really conclude further 2A0A:EF40:833:3901:457B:92C8:7E06:596B (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

886 seems like the obvious answer to me. The Kingdom of Wessex page says the kingdom ended in 886, and as far as I'm aware no one else claimed the title of "King of the West Saxons" since (though I could be wrong). So if we go by the date of 927 as the beginning of the Kingdom of England, what do we call the period between 886 and 927, where there was no "King of the West Saxons" and no "King of the English" but a "King of the Anglo-Saxons" (which btw is a bit of a misnomer, wasn't the actual title something like Rex Anglo ("King of the Angles")? Pescavelho (talk) 17:53, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring

Instead of changing the date back and forth between 886 and 927, can we just keep it vague? There's no need to insist on either of these dates. Richard75 (talk) 16:25, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the opening part of the article look worse than before

For example the official and regional languages look so basic compared to before 2A00:23C8:CC86:7C01:97B:70F:74CB:C79C (talk) 12:23, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to be immersed in details, there's an article for you to peruse. The infobox is not designed for that level of detail, so it was simplified to better fulfill its purpose of providing key facts at a glance. Remsense ‥ 论 15:20, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

886 under Alfred

Thread retitled from "November 2024".

Please stop changing the founding date to 886 under Alfred. England DID NOT exist under him, as he was only the King of Wessex. King of the Anglo-Saxons was more of a ceremonial title. Æthelstan was the one to conquer the rest of England from the Danelaw and adopt the title King of the English. Not only does pushing the founding event back to Alfred incorrect, it overshadows the real founding event. So just get over that England was not founded until 927. GOLDIEM J (talk) 13:07, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't one founding date. It was a process that took decades, as the article explains. 927 is no more correct than any other year. Unfortunately, infoboxes encourage people to insert a particular date. As for which king to list as "first", we already had a consensus for Alfred; that doesn't mean we can never change it to Athelstan but you need to get a consensus to do that first. Richard75 (talk) 16:09, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't the Kingdom of England founded in 927?

I may be wrong but Alfred the Great not only didn't have the title "King of the English" which wasn't adopted until Æthelstan in the year 927 but he also didn't control all the de jure lands that the Kingdom of England and its people compromises of? The writer fixer (talk) 10:25, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by de jure lands, but 927 was the completion of the process, not the whole of it; it's not as if nobody had heard of England or the English in 926. And the fact that the borders of the land the king controlled changed from time to time doesn't mean the land he controlled can't be called England until they resembled the modern borders.

Basically, England formed over three generations, but some editors insist on pinning its creation to a single year (or in one instance, a single day!) just because the infobox demands a date. Richard75 (talk) 12:16, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, by 927, England did not resemble its modern borders. There was still Strathclyde in the way. 927 is the beginning because that's when it was proclaimed after the Danelaw was fully conquered. "King of the Anglo-Saxons" is more of a ceremonial protectorship title, similar to Russia claiming to protect all Eastern Orthodox Slavic groups. GOLDIEM J (talk) 18:28, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly began before 927. Richard75 (talk) 14:43, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Edit wars

Edit summaries are not the place to discuss this. That's what the talk page is for. Richard75 (talk) 14:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS- this topic has also been discussed over at the talk page for List of English monarchs in 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2022. Richard75 (talk) 15:08, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]