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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2009-05 > 1243177154
From:
Subject: Re: Nuno Ordonez, infante de Galiza
Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:59:14 -0700 (PDT)
References: <mailman.2361.1243029646.2001.gen-medieval@rootsweb.com> <32048723-f05e-4d39-a3be-4f03b322a599@b6g2000pre.googlegroups.com> <54bbd0aa-bba7-4355-953c-c2a4d8d6407a@i6g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
On May 22, 5:44 pm, Francisco Tavares de Almeida
<> wrote:
> On 22 Maio, 23:11, wrote:
>
>
>
> > The real point is that everyone is guessing.
>
> That's a basic truth for most of this epoch with signifiant exceptions
> amongst souverains and negligible exceptions in nobility.
>
Even the Astur-Leonese royalty has at least two points that are not
fully satisfactorily documented. As has been discussed here several
weeks back, the linkage between Ramiro I and Alfonso I and II is not
definitive. Likewise, while general consensus makes Vermudo II son of
Ordono III, there is minority opinion that he was son of Ordono IV, or
of Ordono Fruelaz, or both (with Ordono IV being Ordono Fruelaz), and
his mother is another can of worms.
> Just two points.
> 1. Between conflicting guesses, after some basic filtering I choose
> the last newest guess if the guesser is somehow reliable, trusting
> that he knew and evaluate all the prior guesses. For this people 'lato
> sensu' those are Vajay and São Payo.
> I know the risks as I always remember Étiennete "de Longwy" but most
> of the times the risks are acceptable and even desirable when the
> alternative is ES or Salazar y Castro.
I guess my only response to this would be that newer is often better
than older, but 'we don't know' may be the best, in some cases.
Take Agatha of [pick one: Hungary, Russia, Friesland, Bulgaria,
etc.]. People have been batting this around for centuries, and while
some of the earliest solutions are clearly false (like 16th century
Scottish author who made her daughter of Canute), the newest solutions
(those of Parsons and Mladov) are becoming more and more elaborate and
farther away from the evidence. In her case, I suspect that the real
answer is that the chroniclers writing about it didn't know
themselves, and that is the reason for the conflicting information
given in the primary record, and that if the solution is one of those
propounded, it is more likely to be a solution first outlined more
than 50 years ago rather than one put forward since 1960.
taf
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