I redirected this from Henry I to Henri I so that those searching (for knowledge) when typing in Henry will learn that in English we always spell a foreign person's name by their language spelling and will see that Henri is French for Henry.
- DW -- we don't always use the foreign spelling. If we did, people would know to look under it. Please just stop being silly. J Hofmann Kemp
How then do you justify changing Pepin (the English and French spelling) to Pippin in direct contradiction of every recognized publication and leading experts in the world. All this being the way you see it, (different from page to page) means the French spelling of Charlemagne should be changed to Carolus.
- As I said, it's case to case and changes over time. I was raised with Prince Henry the Navigator -- a review copy of a new textbook uses Enrique. If there were good reason to just change everything to the original language, fine, but there isn't. It comes down to what the norm is at a given time. J Hofmann Kemp
Here is a sample of more imposition but altered opinion under changes over time and the norm. Here is fact: you and most of us never heard of Henri but are used to Henry. But, conversely, we are all used to Louis instead of Lewis so that is okay. In one breath you say to be consistent and use an English name, then next you contradict like Joan III of Navarre>more commonly found Jeanne d'Albret). I call it all a lack of professionalism.
- The goal is to write an encyclopedia for an English-speaking audience. Not to be absolutely consistent on everything over time and space--or do you want to go and edit all the articles on South America to use the current transcriptions of Quechua names? If someone is best known in English as Jeanne d'Albret, we use that name; if someone is best known as Pippin rather than Pepin, we use that one.
- Name calling, on the other hand, does not help matters. Vicki Rosenzweig
Thank you Vicki R. Using best known is not what J Hofmann Kemp is doing. In the case of Joan of Navarre, it makes sense. But Pippin instead of Pepin is a direct contradiction. Pepin is used in Britannica, Encarta etc. ... SL
- For the Last time (I hope) -- you can read my comments on this elsewhere. Pippin is being used more and more often in English-language scholarly works on the Carolingians. This is the trend since about the 1980s. Noted historians such as Bernard Bachrach, Rosamund McKittrick, Timothy Reuter, and Janet Nelson all use Pippin. Pippin is the form used at the time, in terms of the Latin. The change in usage may have something to do with that, or perhaps with the fact that Carolingian scholarship in English now includes all of the Carolingian kingdoms, and not just the Carolingians as part of French history (although of the historians mentioned above, only Reuter focuses more on the Carolingian East). Brittanica and Encarta are general reference works, and tend not to be in synch with immediately contemporary scholarship. Wikipedia is unique in that we can constantly bring things up to date. There is no agenda here except consistency, and I have never said Pepin isn't correct -- only that it made sense to reflect current scholarship (but make both terms searchable). I know that I have seen texts with Pippin since I started College in 1982, so I don't think it's that out of line. J Hofmann Kemp