charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote
Inclusion in a secondary source can imply notability, but it does not mean that absence from secondary sources implies lack of notability.
Absence from a given secondary source implies little. Absence from a whole range of secondary sources is prima facie evidence of a lack of 'notability'.
Not even that. We never know whether we will find the key source in the next place that we look. Fermat's Last Theorem remained unproven for three centuries because nobody could find the killer counterexample. In law it relates to proving one's innocence when there is no evidence to connect you with the crime one way oor the other. This puts the burden of proof on the one who says that something exists.
I have been working in various parts of medieval history. I don't have the original manuscripts on my shelves. Therefore I write entirely from secondary (or more distant sources). I think we can have an article in WP about any figure for whom there are enough surviving sources; and (as far as I'm concerned) not otherwise. And this represents the situation on other 'frontier' parts of the encyclopedia.
At least in medieval history the individuals that you discuss are not in a position to threaten a libel suit whenever you say something with which they disagree. :-)
Until recently the only available sources for writing about the Crusades were European ones.
Ec