On Denefrith

How is this even an entry?

I’m going to quote this entry in full, because by the time I get to the end of this sentence, I will have written nearly twice as many words in my intro as they used in the page itself:

“Denefrith was a medieval Bishop of Sherborne.
Denefrith was consecrated in 793. He died between 796 and 801”

If there is this little information of a given subject, it strikes me that this is not a subject that is worthy of a Wikipedia page.

Seriously, merge that shit with a ‘list of Bishops of Sherborne’ or something.

Besides being a context for jokes about , this experiment is supposed to have an element of education. Here is what I have learned from this article:

1: Sherborne is a place that had Bishops.

2: One of them was named Denefrith

3: He became a Bishop in 793.

Here’s what I don’t know:

1: literally anything else.

Now, the writers of this article were under no obligation to explain when and where he was born, what he did in his role as Bishop, or even where Sherborne is. And it’s entirely possible that none of that information is readily available.

(Hell, they can’t even get more accurate than a sex-year window of when the guy died, so it seems like info might be scant)

Which brings to mind the question, then, of why he rates an article in the first place.

Looking at the revision history, the article was first formulated in 2007 by a user named Ealdgyth. She is, by her own admission, interested in medieval history and horses, and most of her edit history reflects that. So perhaps she is merely being thorough in her coverage by contributing this post on Denefrith, despite the lack of significant information on him.

But I like to think that she added him because the Bishop of Sherborne was actually a horse, and she couldn’t resist noting that her two loves had intersected in what may or may not be an unlikely manner. Seeing as I lack the historical knowledge of Ealdgyth, I don’t know how usual or unusual it would be for a horse to be a bishop.

But consider this: in the game of chess, the bishop piece is represented by a horses head.

…What?

…what’s that now?

…it’s actually a mitre?

Oh. Well, never mind, then. Go about your business.