Talk:Gidleigh Castle

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Origins of Prouse family

Some attempt must be made in the article to discuss the origin of this family. Clearly it was important enough to build a castle, so a discussion of possible connection to the Earl of Devon is relevant, acceptable sources are provided.Lobsterthermidor (talk) 14:34, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

This is on my watchlist. I don't want to say anything now about the merits of the removed and restored content, but I note that you also reverted Agricolae's improvements to the referencing. When following the revert phase of WP:BRD, making separate undo's rather than a mass revert is preferable. I've redone the WP:DUPCITES-compliant references to Cokayne.  —SMALLJIM  16:53, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Update: looking more closely I see that Agricolae made a second set of DUPCITES improvements in their second edit, which you reverted. So although the principle of what I wrote in my third sentence above is still true, it doesn't apply in this instance and I've struck it out and removed the diff. However, although it would have meant more work, to retain the positive changes by reinstating (or rephrasing) just the disputed text rather than reverting the whole would have been preferable.  —SMALLJIM  17:35, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I've looked into this now and I agree with User:Agricolae's assessment that the content in question does not belong here, at least not in this extended form and without better references. The very old sources (which we should be using very sparingly) differ and it is undue weight to include over 160 words (about a quarter of the whole text) to discuss one early 17-century source (Pole) first citing another (Brooke) and then disagreeing with him. For any of this to be included, a recent source would be needed. Cherry and Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Devon (a reliable source that should surely be at the core of this article) doesn't mention it in its half-page entry on the castle (p. 456).

I've identified a number of other problems with the article too, but I'll deal with them later.  —SMALLJIM  14:45, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

On the first of my edits, there are two separate issues. The first is whether an article on Gidleigh needs to say absolutely anything about people who did not hold Gidleigh - this is not a family history, it is the history of a place. Even were the descent true, it does not indicate the status of the family at the time they built Gidleigh, and hence is of dubious value even for the claimed purpose. There is a much bigger problem, though. This old chestnut that Walter Prouz, active during the reign of Henry II (died 1189), could possibly be descended from Peter le Pruz, who was the second husband of a woman whose first husband died IN 1242!!! - he was active at least 53 years before his supposed ancestor, child of this marriage, could have been born - is patently absurd on its face, and has been recognized as such for about a century (I recall an article on Gidleigh in Transaction of the Devonshire Association, and also discussion in Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries - no modern historian gives this the time of day, and it has no business being on Wikipedia as if it had any validity whatsoever).

Regarding the wife of William Prouz, this is the kind of trainwreck that can come from trying to turn topography into genealogy. We present two different options, that 'he' married either Alice de Widworthy, daughter of Hugh de Widworthy, or else Alice de Reigny, coheiress of William de Reigny. Here is the problem - these were not alternative wives of William Prouz, they were wives of William Prouz the elder and William Prouz the younger. Further, Alice de Widworthy was not daughter of Hugh de Widworthy - whose only daughter and heiress died without issue, leaving William Prouz the younger as first cousin as heir, while the younger William's wife was not one of the daughters of William de Reigny, and her surname wasn't Reigny at all, she was a coheiress but her mother was Reigny's daughter - in both cases Prouz inherited from these families, but in neither case did they marry a daughter. Unfortunately, historians have made a complete hash over these relationships, with six or seven different reconstructions, even inventing another wife for William the elder to try to make sense out of the Prouz family holding land that they actually bought rather than inherited. It would take a full-length journal article to sort out the mess, something that both falls beyond the scope if Wikipedia and more importantly, need not be an issue if we just quit trying to turn this history of a place into a family history - it is a can of worms we need not open given that there is as much controversy over this issue and the Prouz family did not inherit Gidleigh from them.

One final note. Vivian is a convenient source for Devon families, but the pages of Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries from the 1890s through the 1940s are full of one article after another pointing out errors ranging from minor to major to absurd regarding the families he covered. It is decent, though far from perfect, when covering the period from about 1500 to present, but for anything before that, he can be quite untrustworthy - I could point you to one pedigree of his in which the mother of each successive generation is wrong over a seven-generation stretch, and the male-line trunk is wrong twice, and the chronological impossibility of the early Prouz line speaks for itself. Vivian needs to be used with extreme care.

And as long as we are talking about dubious material, we should not be using a Latin dictionary as our only source for the origin of the Prouz name - there is even debate as to whether the Prouz of the Gidleigh family was originally 'le Prouz' (Probus) and not 'de Prouz', some highly-derived toponymic. A dictionary cannot provide the answer for this, and again, the disputed origin of the surname is of no relevance to the place this article is about. Agricolae (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, @Agricolae:. That's most illuminating. So that Prouz thing is an old chestnut? In that case I'm annoyed at Lobsterthermidor because I spent some time drawing out a tree of the people he mentions in this article to try to make sense of it – and if you could see my drawing, you'd see the pencil line and "???" between Walter Prous and Robert de Courtenay (d.1242), that I added as I pondered where I had gone wrong!

I also noted that the first paragraph under the subsection "Roger Moels of Lustleigh (d.1323)" duplicates in different wording the content of the second para under "Prouse". It looks like a hasty copy-paste job.

To take some of your other main points: (1) Regarding who should appear in these history/descent sections, I think that only significant people should be included, both in the line of descent and their close relatives. And "significant" here means either someone who had a material effect on the property, or is otherwise notable enough to have their own article. It's far preferable to state something like "...then descended through the same family until..." instead of dredging up details of those who contributed nothing to the history of the place. 'Wikipedia summarizes' is the principle. (2) All Wikipedia's articles, irrespective of topic, should be written in engaging prose, and in topics containing descents that means not using genealogical conventions and convoluted sentences. (3) Any history of a family before they held the property should be very short, just enough to provide context, if any is needed. (4) I quite agree that for this article on Gidleigh Castle, whether William Prouz's wife was a Reigny or a Widworthy is irrelevant.

Regarding the accuracy of Vivian, I recall an IP mentioned this in an RfC in 2016 here. Actually the entire discussion at Talk:The Grange, Broadhembury is relevant to this. The fact that Vivian is not perfect must be noted, but the problem, of course, is knowing when to trust it and when not. We really need an updated version - fancy a (lifetime, unpaid) job?

Lastly, articles should follow the principle of WP:PROPORTION: the space allocated to each individual aspect should be broadly proportional to that allotted to that aspect in the reliable sources for that topic. Here, that means in reliable sources about Gidleigh Castle – not the pedigrees in Vivian, Cokayne or any other primarily genealogical publication. We should also severely restrict our use of very old sources like Pole, Risdon, Westcote, Prince etc. They were writing for the audiences of their day who had completely different interests to today's encyclopedia readers. These cannot be considered to be reliable sources today, either, and should be attributed in the text whenever they are used (e.g. "According to Pole ...<reference>"). Basically these ancient sources form part of the primary material that modern (20th/21st century) researchers use to come to their conclusions. Where that research exists, we should find it and cite what it says. If we can find no such research, we should stay quiet or say very little, being especially careful not to interpret what the old sources say.  —SMALLJIM  01:32, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

(no need to ping further) Going a bit 'meta', it is a big problem that these old antiquarian sources are public domain and freely accessible online, while much of the mountain of work correcting them is recent enough to still be under copyright (or rather, presumed to be under copyright by the 'better safe than sorry' approach of Google Books and HathiTrust), and hence unavailable. Most of the lines covered by Vivian are problematic at some point, but most of them have yet to be specifically reevaluated by a critical scholar. Certainly every unevaluated line I have taken a stab at that has had a rather serious error at some point in it. We really shouldn't use Vivian as a stand-alone source unless we are sure, but again, we wouldn't have to if we weren't coatracking genealogy onto these topographic pages. With this Prouz marriages, as I said, the flaws in the antiquarian accounts have been pointed out, but it is all such a quagmire that I had to throw it all out and go back to the primary record - we can't use my work, but we certainly don't need to give information that is demonstrably wrong, particularly when it is irrelevant to Gidleigh castle. You mention the Moeles section - I couldn't stomach looking any further the other day, but looking now, the mention of William de Moeles is completely gratuitous - we know he never held Gidleigh and wasn't Alice's child - in the 1940s, the favored theory was that he was another husband of Alice, while someone else suggested a brother of Roger, and someone else an illegitimate son. Again, because we present irrelevant genealogy we open a can of worms that need not be opened. Agricolae (talk) 02:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I was going to suggest waiting to see if Lt had any comments, but since you're editing the article, I recommend that "Descent" should be renamed as "History", linking the people with the details of the building as much as possible. I can do that (per your {{cn}} I have a ref for the building stone etc). Let me know when you're done with it.  —SMALLJIM  16:41, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I have a number of references relevant to the successive holders of Gidley, but they are packed away so I am done for now. As to History vs Descent, that is fine with me. Agricolae (talk) 18:23, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I was pipped to the edits by User:Hchc2009 - hi! - I thought you were retired ;-) But it's good to see you back. You've made many of the same edits that I was working on (too slowly!), though you've trimmed it back a bit further than I would have done. Never mind, I can use that as a base to add a bit more content and we can certainly reach consensus as to what the article should look like.  —SMALLJIM  22:59, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Still lurking here occasionally Smalljim! All's all well with you, Hchc2009 (talk) 08:57, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

So you are! - I should've checked your contributions. Hard to stay away isn't it? Best,  —SMALLJIM  10:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

(further reply to Agricolae's of 6 Nov). About that Prouz/Courtenay cockup, I've just found "The Ancestors of Prouz of Chagford" by J. Benson in The Devon Assoc's Transactions 1940 volume, and enjoyed reading this (p. 183): Even in these modern days of speed records we cannot achieve the births, marriages and deaths of five generations in the space of two years. The amazing thing is that such a ludicrous anachronism should have been allowed to stand for so long. This emphasises the dangers of relying solely on very old sources for anything, and also raises the question of how much research should be undertaken before creating articles or editing them. It's particularly relevant to low importance topics like this one, where few people with knowledge of the subject will notice any errors, and only a few of them will take the trouble to check and correct them. My view is that once we go beyond beyond WP:STUB status (as this was here), fewer, better researched articles must be preferable to many poorly researched ones.  —SMALLJIM  23:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Battishill

I am not finding any description of Gidleigh being held by Battishill. Worthy has it passing by direct purchase from Coode to Bart Gidley (in what would be the 17th century) but we have already discussed the problems of using antiquarian sources. Any ref for the Battishill tenure? Agricolae (talk) 16:41, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

It came from the Hughes (1947) reference. The relevant paragraph from there (p. 92) is: The manor remained in the hands of the Coade family until about 1580, when a Walter Coade died. The next Lord of the Manor who presented to the living was Henry Battishill (1631). There were Battishills in South Tawton, Drewsteignton and Spreyton. I have been unable to discover where Henry Battishill came from, how he became connected with Gidleigh, or what happened to him. [para] In 1683 the manor was held by Bartholomew Gidley...

Although I suppose it's not the best evidence, I think, as stated above, that we should prefer the more recent sources - while also (as I tried to do) avoid the temptation to include too much detail, especially about those who were not significant to the history of the property. I think the gist of what I wrote in this edit (and the Oops! correction) has been inadvertently changed somewhat by later edits.  —SMALLJIM  22:12, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I had overlooked that - I was looking where he mentions Coode on p. 93. It seems perfectly valid as a ref, as far as it goes.

Just for the record, a lot went on in the 1390s and early 1400s that I haven't found the secondary sourcing to describe. In 1394, John Berye and his wife Clarice, sister of Sir John Daumerle, quitclaimed all right to her inheritance from him, including explicitly Gidleigh, to Sir John's widow Isabel Daumarle, Nicholas Tremayne (Isabel's son by an earlier marriage) John Isaak, and John Prouz (of Chagford) with remainder to the heirs of John Prouz, in exchange for 400 marks silver (from unpublished Feet of Fines). Isaak, Tremayne and Prouz then granted Gidleigh for life to Isabel, with remainder to Richard Prouz, then John Prouz and his heirs, per Isabel's 1408 ipm. Vivian (in his Cornwall volume) reports that John Dernford and his wife quitclaimed their right to Gidleigh for 1000 marks, but seems to date this 13 Richard II, which is chronologically impossible. At an unknown date, Joan and John claimed against Nicholas Tremayn all of Daumarle's lands as his heir, again including Gidleigh. Then Vivian says that Joan disseizing Stephen Idell (no idea where he fits in) of Gidleigh, citing the ipm (unpublished) of Walter Coode, and in 1424, Richard Coode presented to Gidleigh, even though his mother-in-law Joan Dernford lived into the 1450s, so it is all a mess that I can't get through without drawing my own suppositions, which of course I cannot do here. (I lay this out, not to be used, but simply to prevent someone from presenting a narrative that makes this appear as simple inheritance from Daumarle to Coode, as I mistakenly did before I dug into the primaries.) Agricolae (talk) 00:11, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I admire your ability to work all this out - I suppose you can "see" it all in some way as you write it. I'm afraid my brain doesn't work like that: to make any sense of it I'd have to write it all down as a diagram and draw lots of linking lines. It's such a shame that Lobsterthermidor (whose edits instigated all this discussion) isn't more collegial, because he clearly has much to offer in this area.  —SMALLJIM  00:32, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Just a followup to correct something. I found a citation to the 1394 fine in which John Dernford and Joan for 1000 marks quitclaimed Gidleigh to the same group, above, Isabel, Nicholas, John and John, with remainder to Nicholas Tremayne. It looks like she and her grandmother Clarice (perhaps motivated by an avaricious second husband as they seem to have been having a fire-sale of Clarice's inheritance) were acting cross-purposes, and this may have led to a confused legal status that Joan later took advantage of to claw back the manor. Also, for what it's worth, Clarice's mother had granted Gidleigh, for life, to Sir John Daunee, who died in 1347 (per his ipm) - this all seems convoluted, but these types of transactions were not at all unusual. They are just hidden under the strictly genealogical framework for tenure that has been applied by the old antiquarians. That is part of the reason I am of the opinion that less, rather than more, genealogy is probably wise in these types of articles - we sometimes aren't really tracing tenure at all, just genealogy that vaguely paralleled it. Agricolae (talk) 17:24, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Regarding your last sentence, do you think we might already have a bit too much genealogy-leaning content in this article? The detail is relevant to whole estates, not just this building and I wonder if it might fit better in a hypothetical Manor of Gidleigh article. Since that article doesn't exist I suppose it's reasonable to consider whether it's appropriate to include the detail here instead. The answer, of course, depends on whether it's sufficiently on topic, and proportionate to the content in the castle's RSs. I think I'm right that the people involved here are not known to have had any particular effect on this building. What do you think - should we trim it a bit?  —SMALLJIM  10:53, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

This has been a tension in the article with regard to the recent round of edits. User:Hchc2009's more minimalist version was focused exclusively on the castle itself, while yours (with my additions) gave more detail on the ownership of the manor (which from the time of its construction equates with ownership of the 'Castle'). I think a 'manor' article would take us right into the weeds I was talking about - I don't think it could be written without massive amounts of OR/SYNTH, so it is probably best here, and there is some leeway typically given on PROPORTION when there is no main article, but I guess I would say that if it takes this much effort to put together the ownership chain, it probably isn't noteworthy when there is no indication they affected the structure (except perhaps the Coodes - I have seen it claimed that it was under them that it was neglected and collapsed). My gut feeling is to jump straight from William Prouz building it (with a brief mention something like 'from him ownership passed through several families until . . .) to the Coodes (if I can again find the claim that they neglected it), then the Gidleys without all of the convoluted in between, but I would have to see it laid out to have a better feeling for how it would work. 14:33, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just expanded the text on the building itself to pull the balance back that way somewhat, so I'll leave finding the appropriate balance in the History section to you.  —SMALLJIM  14:55, 10 November 2020 (UTC)