User talk:Solo

If I may ask where do you get the info for the Tourney of Compiegne? I am asking because if there is some source where I could check it out just out of pure curiosity. I find it most interesting for one fact alone...the arms of Brienne as Counts of Eu. I always thought it is strange that they would use the same arms as the main branch of the Brienne family and as Count Palatines of Burgundy, although the latter would be fine since they were considered foreign nobility in a sense they were vassals of the HRE, but the arms in this setup shows Jean II, Count of Eu using silver/white billets and lion as armed argent as well...most peculiar and interesting. :p Also you may have noticed I made a minor change there...the Jean de Brienne (Grand Butler of France) was in fact referred as d'Acre as did all his brothers, including the father of Jean II of Eu. The name of the arms is fine (the eagle he used is the imperial eagle of which the use to him was granted by the then current Emperor), anyway I he should be referred as d'Acre all the way since he was referred as such by his contemporaries and most especially probably during this tournament as well as does his name under the arms confirms. Hope that is not an issue...if you don't like it, you can revert...no biggie. Finellach (talk)

Yes I often hesitate to put the alternative names like that (some have several and others can be apocryphal), I find it hard to put so much info on so few space and it's clearly where the website find its hard limit ; I mean with roll of arms and the way identifying individuals would need to have small articles, mini biographies or details about the clues/reasoning behind identifications (like most of the unidentified indiv. where there's often several good possibilities). Jean de Brienne/d'Acre is one of the many individual all previous studies failed to identify (I'm really not sure why, since the legend makes him a 100%), he's also in the Wijnbergen and most other contemporary rolls. It's obviously the legend that identifies him so having both names is the best way to go IMO.

To illustrate this I could use one individual I identified in the Wijnbergen : Guillaume d'Avignon which is in fact Guillaume de Gonnesse, seneschal of Provence (went to Avignon to be sworn in at the time of the roll so that's probably the shortcut made by the herald). He's nicknamed after his title in the roll but if I have to use the least number of characters to identify him for the reader I can't just call him Guillaume d'Avignon and be done with it (if the previous authors knew who it was they weren't clear about it and I had to make that reasoning by myself to get there, so they at least failed to convey the information properly). At least, if there's the original legend below, I can afford to call him by his dynastic name, making it easy to understand it's an individual with several names, which is more of the norm than an oddity really. This is why having the legend, the closest possible to the original displayed in the roll is absolutely critical (I think it's really lacking in other rolls, that's my biggest pick about those to be honest).

For the roll, I'm using Barthélémy's publication which is based on the Valenciennes manuscript (that's not the original ms but that's the best I have). The book is available online on Gallica and Google : https://books.google.fr/books?id=4OZAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
I have the visuals from the several Beyeren copies available online : one is very close but I have the pictures from a few years back and am not sure where I got them tbh so I can't reference them clearly, the other one you already linked in the sources is clearly further apart but still has most entries identical (different order though). I have corrected a few of Barthélémy's entries when he obviously misread (like Henri d'Avaugour's maunch in chief) or forgot something (for Cleves he forgot the escarboucle but it's obviously there from the unfinished sentence) and I'll make a list of those once the roll is complete.
There's a lot of approximations in the roll so you shouldn't take anything for granted (specially since the material was probably altered in the various copies). Those billets in silver are one of those IMO as they would appear in other rolls if there was something behind it. My guess is that Barthélémy misread the colour (the most likely but I couldn't say for sure so I didn't correct this one) or the herald made a mistake.--Solo (talk) 09:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the source, I'll check it out for sure. It's really nice they started to digitize these armorials and such. As for Jean, Count of Eu, you might be right...it may be a mistake or unfinished touch or it can actually be the arms he used on the tournament itself and made the billets and armed the lion argent just for difference there, who will know...but it is interesting. Thanks again. Finellach (talk) 17:11, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Actually the user FlamingObsidian created the page Ordinary, http://wappenwiki.org/index.php/Ordinary, I haven't had time to add arms to each page. Feel free to add whatever you want to the pages.JSpuller (talk) 10:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Why have you removed Simiane again from Agoult page? We already had a small discussion about this...the 2nd house of Simiane IS a cadet branch of Agoult. It is well documented. Also the House of Apt as you refer to them on Simiane page again IS the same thing as Agoult. Finellach (talk) 18:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC) Edit: check this Genealogy of the family. Also I will re-added them to the Sault page with some minor changes. Finellach (talk)

There's a first family, the lords of Apt (the name they use the most and the very center of their possessions, with a firm grip on the bishopric) and other possessions in Provence and Comtat (they are part of the larger dynastic Nice-Orange group, just like Orange, Venasque, Adhémar, etc). After marrying the heiress of the lord of Simiane, the family splits in half. The elder son, Giraud receives the main possessions of the family (Apt, Caseneuve and Gordes), plus the possessions of his mother (Simiane), while his cadet brothers recenter their possessions around Sault and Entrevennes. Before that there's not even a House of Agoult since nobody consistently used that name at the time of course (nobody does that in the 11th c. and they arguably don't either in the following century but we have to call them something and that's the name they settle on later).

Representing the house of Simiane as a regular cadet branch of the house of Agoult falsely gives the impression they are just that (I could argue it's the other way around if anything, the cadets being those that received the lesser share and assumed their name from those lordships), when they are the main branch that assumes a new name (it happens again later in that same family when marrying into the House of Marseille-Fos). This is nothing exceptionnal for Southern France where people could assume their mother's name even for a single generation or even assume alternating names like the Auger family which rotates three names for each heir, from their maternal ancestor lines.

Also why did you delete my entry for Astoaud ? Those are the medieval arms of that family, and while I understand the focus here on modern heraldry, those are still interesting to include since I only list the known medieval arms for local noble houses.

Be aware that while it's a convenient website, this is by no mean an academic work like the family trees you can find in Martin Aurell's book and will conflict with other sources you may like to use (Medlands for starters). There are very few medieval iconographic testimonies (a few seals but no wall painting which is the most important corpus for Provence) given in any of those pages so most references are taken straight from Pithon-Curt which makes his armorial a very modern one. That said J.Gallian deals with modern heraldry and genealogy as his focus and never claims otherwise (his genealogy doesn't say anything that contradicts what I just wrote in any case).

• • • • captcha ate my first reply so it's an incomplete rewrite but I'm not motivated enough to argue in fact. --Solo (talk) 19:43, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The first family of Apt is the same family that we call later Agoult or Sault. Second, we don't know who was the second son or cadet brother as you call them, as the dates are either unknown, contradicting or an approximation at best. But we do know that one brother assumed the name of his mother rather than his other brother who just continued to be styled as his father so is thus a continuation of the main line. Third, both brothers and their descendants shared the main patrimonial possessions, namely Apt, Caseneuve and Gordes that are mentioned, they did not exclusively pass to Simiane branch. So they in essence ruled those seigneuries as co-lords. I don't understand what you mean by "regular branch", however I do know that the later Simiane family are cadets of Agoult/Sault/Apt or however you want to call them as this is mentioned in literally every historical source I could find that deals with this issue. Also there is nothing unusual either by main line of the family passing their main possession on cadets and moving on to some other "better" lordship....Orange-Nassau is prime example of this when Dillenburg branch inherited Orange it passed it's Dillenburg possessions to a younger son/brother. Anyway, this is all well accepted and documented, applying some fictional parent "house of Apt" before that makes absolutely no sense.

I've deleted the Astouad arms because I thought you uploaded without being aware there already is a coa for the family, which you must admit, have done before. ;) However if this is an earlier variant it can be easily re-uploaded ofc. Finellach (talk)

- You know, if you were serious about me fabricating any fictionnal stuff you'd delete everything I ever contributed that you hadn't triple checked before. I hope you didn't mean it cause I don't write fiction.
- I've never said they are the first family of Apt that would be very inexact as there is a previous family of Apt, counts of Apt (not fictionnal). The successor local dynastic group, future Agoult/Simiane family marries into it and inherits their holdings, that's where their wealth comes from, and from nowhere else (prior to that, several theories, one being that they held Valensole near Oraison). Apt is an important city, like Cavaillon, Arles or Avignon, the seat of a bishopric and it allows them to place member of the family on that seat (they in turn usurp new lands & titles for the family, that's exactly how their northern neighbours, the Poitiers became counts of Valentinois for example).
- There's no record of the place then named La Baume d'Agoult before the mid 11th c. when Guillaume (a cadet) brother of the bishop of Apt is mentionned as holding that castle. The first time they would use the name for themselves is even later, at the turn of the century. You can call them the future Agoult if you want it's semantic but this is a period of transition when they're also called the family of the lords of Apt because that's what they are (no established terminology and house of anything certainly isn't a form we like to use in french - no House of Capet in french - so I was merely trying to adapt it for the website that strictly uses that form). There's nothing fictionnal about that, but a lack of record to associate them to the place then named Agoult before those dates (almost surely because the castle came later to consolidate their power in a convenient location between Apt and Cavaillon).
- Anything beyond that is total fantasy without proof. Local nobles are often given higher frankish origins without anything to back it up. Gallian's family trees for the early Agoult and Adhémar (and others) presents old theories long dismissed as pure fiction. At least he mentions that those parts may not be recognized by modern historians (an understatement), but at the same time he quickly dismiss links in recorded acts from Cluny, so it's hard to take anything he writes seriously after that.
- Giraud is usually considered the eldest son, the distribution and the way those holdings consolidate over time at least hints that way. But you're right any date or previous study can be proven wrong (I could argue the same thing about just anyone not royal). Just know that in southern France it's not that unusual and that adopting his mother's name certainly doesn't prove him a cadet (you're assuming he must be because of that and I simply can't agree with that logic). That also would be assuming that there's a consistent use of any one name (or residence for that matter) before that point, and that also certainly isn't true in the historical record (it may be convenient to name back previous individual the same way in a family tree but it can't be used as a justification point).

Anyway not a good use of both our time. Keep the page like that, I can certainly live with it and I have zero motivation to scan anything this time (and it certainly didn't hold any weight the last time I did). I just wanted a break from the Dering and detail local dynasties in preparation for the paintings in Pont-Saint-Esprit.