Talk:Courtaud

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that Courtaud, an infamous man-eating beast described as a "terrible and horrible wolf", was named for its stumpy tail?

• Source: Moriceau, Jean-Marc; Maanen, Erwin van (2023), van Maanen, Erwin; Convery, Ian; Lloyd, Karen; Nevin, Owen T. (eds.), "A History of Wolves and People in France", The Wolf: Culture, Nature, Heritage, Heritage Matters, Boydell & Brewer, pp. 21–36, ISBN 978-1-80543-055-1, retrieved 2026-03-09: "There is again reference to notorious beasts, such as ‘Courtaud’ (stocky with a stumpy tail), a ‘terrible and horrible wolf’ that was captured in autumn 1439 after supposedly killing 14 people."

Histoires des loups - Les loups autour de Paris". https://mrsh.unicaen.fr/homme_et_loup/_en/cas_loups_paris.php.html#:~:text=In%20the%20Paris%20region%2C%20there,attacks%2C%20possibly%20by%20rabid%20wolves.: " Parisians saw no relief until the killing of a “terrible and horrible wolf” called “Courtaut” (stump-tail, because it has lost its tail) in November."

• Reviewed:

Created by TouchedWithFire (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

TouchedWithFire (talk) 18:04, 10 March 2026 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: Good to go for the hook. JeBonSer (talk) 18:19, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Proper attribution and framing for claims from Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris

The array of claims attributed to Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous Charles VI et Charles VII (via The Portable Medieval Reader, which I do not have access to) includes some rather WP:EXTRAORDINARY material and spans a rather large range of history. While there's some appropriate attributing statements, without access to quotes from the cited source it's hard to tell if they're sufficient. TouchedWithFire, would it be possible to provide relevant quotes?

In particular, the claims that wolves were preying on shepherds while leaving their flock unscathed and strangling victims seem highly unusual and it would be good to have supporting quotes there. Additionally, the current writing of the Background section gives the impression that the hordes of man-eating wolves were steadily growing in size and aggression 1421-1440, but that range of time is so long (and the specific incidents currently identified in the article sufficiently sparse) that I would want to see clear text from the cited source to justify this impression. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 03:36, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

@Rosguill Thanks for the comments, I added the quote from The Portable Medieval Reader, as well as an additional source, the translation of the Journal to English by Janet Shirley (which appears in the Internet Archive). Please let me know if there's anything else. Thanks! TouchedWithFire (talk) 12:01, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Courtaud/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: TouchedWithFire (talk · contribs) 07:32, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Edward056686 (talk · contribs) 21:17, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

I will review this. Edward056686 (talk) 21:17, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

• The lede is fairly short and doesn't include all of the main points covered in the article.
  •  Done TouchedWithFire (talk) 10:42, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
• It seems that "Background" and "Interpretation" cover similar ground, they both provide context for the frequency of wolf attacks in France. Combining these into one section would improve the article.
  •  Done TouchedWithFire (talk) 10:42, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
• The anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous Charles VI et Charles VII describes various events of the first half of the 15th century. It seems strange that the first sentence of the "Background" section is describing this book. Is this journal the only source for Cortaud?
• The "Cortaud" section should be renamed "History" or "Life".
  •  Done TouchedWithFire (talk) 10:42, 2 July 2026 (UTC)
• The main section about Cortaud's attacks is quite short, is there nothing more that can be added here?
• According to the Journal, the most infamous was one "terrible and horrible wolf". "The most infamous one" probably refers to the wolves attacking the area, but since this is the first sentence of the section, it should do a better job of introducing the subject.
• Authors Michael Wallace and Lance Roddick wrote novels with a name identical to that of Mannix, and used Courtaud's story as a setting could be "Authors Michael Wallace and Lance Roddick wrote novels about Cortaud, both also titled The Wolves of Paris."
• The divergence of the Parisian wolves from their ordinary behavior of avoiding humans has been explained by some as the result of the Hundred Years War. The desolated villages, the abundance of corpses and the vulnerability and availability of the mortally wounded, women and children all are considered contributing factors to the development of the man-eating canids. This passage could be made more clear. Who are the people referred to by the statement that this was explained "by some"? What made women and children more "available" to wolves?
• There are other sources that can be used to expand the article. I found these two on Google Books: The History of the Wolf in Western Civilization and The Wild Dogs in Life and Legend. There are others to be found on Google Scholar.
• What makes John Knifton a reliable source?
• Per MOS:POPCULT, we don't include mentions of a subject in novels or other media unless those mentions are discussed in detail in secondary sources. If the only thing we can say is that Cortaud appeared in or inspired a novel, cited to the work itself or a trivial discussion in a review etc, it should not be included. If a source mentioned Cortaud's appearance in those novels while talking about Cortaud's impact or wolves in pop culture, it should be included.
• Template:Infobox animal can be used.
  •  Done TouchedWithFire (talk) 10:43, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Images

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_de_Paris_vers_1550_porte_St-Antoine.jpg This should be tagged as a Public Domain image since it seems to be a cropped version of an illustration that is in the public domain.
• The other two images are tagged correctly.
• It isn't necessary for a Good Article, but it would be nice to add alt text to the images.
• If "Loup Anthropophage" is the title of the illustration, it should be in quote marks. If it's not the official title, it can be omitted so the caption would just be "Drawing of a man-eating wolf in Brittany, France (1589)".

This is a really interesting article and it held my attention all the way to the end. I think it needs to be expanded to be broad and the number and quality of the sources used should be improved. Once you've made some progress on that, I will look at it for finer improvements and copyediting. Edward056686 (talk) 22:34, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

As it's been a few weeks since this article was put on hold, I'm marking it as a "Fail". I think it should be renominated once the nominator has time to expand and improve it. This is an interesting story and a lot of work has been put into the article so far. Edward056686 (talk) 02:53, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.