Bæddel and bædling is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
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	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 8, 2025. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that scholars have suggested that bædlings may have been a third gender in Anglo-Saxon society?
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@Generalissima: I have had a look at the Definition section and think it needs some more work. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on early medieval texts, so I apologise for any misunderstandings of my own. (There are scans of the four glosses and the main excerpt from the penitential on Commons, so I have created Commons:Category:Bæddel and bædling for convenience.)

• It [Bædling] is given three different Latin glosses used to gloss three different Latin words in the four extant sources, including mollis 'soft person' Bædling does not gloss mollis, it is possibly used as a translation in the penitentiaries, so mollis could be removed here.
• mollis 'soft person' needs to be explained. According to Frantzen 2020 Recent scholars are in general agreement on the meaning of "molles.” Boswell argued that "molles" means "weak-willed” or “debauched," possibly "wanton" or "unrestrained."
• The Old English translation of the penitential handbook Paenitentiale Theodori makes a distinction between men and bædlings the article should explain that the translation is based on categories in the Latin penitential. According to Frantzen 2020 Theodore's Penitential uses three categories to describe men who have sex with other men: "masculus,” “sidomitae,” [presumably "Sodomitae"] and “molles" (1.2.2, 1.2.5–6, CED 3:178).
• The Old English translation of the penitential handbook Paenitentiale Theodori Two translations of the Paenitentiale Theodori mention bædlings, so it would be helpful to mention them both.
• a similar comparison with adultery is also applied to bæddels in the Antwerp Glossary. I can't access Bell 2023, but, as far as I can see, the scanned Antwerp glosses don't mention adultery.

TSventon (talk) 20:52, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I'd have no disagreement with any of the first four here being done as bold edits.

Bell 2023 is available on TWL -- the relevant quotation is This occurs in Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus, MS 32, where the Latin hermafroditus (hermaphrodite) is glossed as scritta (scrætte, “adulteress”) and bæddel. That's pretty unequivocal: does the citation there help you find it? It's not impossible that Bell has misread, but I'd generally be very cautious about proposing to overrule a scholarly source's statement of fact with a Wikipedian's observations, however expert they are, as that's WP:OR by any definition. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:22, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UndercoverClassicist, Thank you, I will try to update the article. The usage of mollis is quite complex, as I expect you know. I am not trying to overrule a scholarly source, I wanted to find out what it said first (I couldn't find Project Muse under M in TWL, but now realise it is under P). TSventon (talk) 11:37, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Mollis" in classical Latin has strong connotations of effeminacy and non-normative homosexual sex (in fact, that's pretty much its only meaning when applied to a person), but I'd need to defer to an early medievalist as to whether that was still true in our period. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:06, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really in the glosses? Is there an up-to-date available mirror of the glosses to show this? All online search results seem to lead back to this Wiki page and the corresponding (equally unsourced) Wiktionary page, where it was added by an IP-address with no cited sources; are we dealing with citogenesis? Inimicvs-voster (talk) 11:40, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

E: What makes me suspicious is the fact that it's said to be "uniquely attested" but the Wiktionary page lists two alternate forms. Inimicvs-voster (talk) 11:41, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scroll down to the body: you'll find it cited to Bell 2023, page 18. Specifically:

Bædling is unattested anywhere else in the surviving Old English corpus, aside from two tenth-century glosses: one in London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra A.III, where effeminata is annotated as molles/bædlingas; and MS Harley 3376, where the Latinate cariar is translated as bædling. It is possible that the word has links to bæddel, another obscure Old English word that is preserved only in a glossThis occurs in Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus, MS 32, where the Latin hermafroditus (hermaphrodite) is glossed as scritta (scrætte, “adulteress”) and bæddel. In this manuscript, scritta/scrætta and bæddel are further associated with another word wæpenwifestre, also not attested elsewhere. This last word seems to function like wæpnedman, delineating a woman (wif) that has the phallic masculinity of a wæpen.

UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:44, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've in the meanwhile found a dictionary citation for it, which I'll add specifically under the word. The alternate form (without -e-) on Wiktionary should probably be recommended for deletion, as it seems to be citogenesis there Inimicvs-voster (talk) 11:46, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inimicvs-voster you can see scans of the glosses discussed (and the longer version of the penitential) at Commons:Category:Bæddel and bædling. Commons:File:Hermafroditus in the Antwerp-London Glossaries.jpg has a link to the whole manuscript and the relevant page is 15r. TSventon (talk) 13:09, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I found it later; my issue was primarily because I found the e-less variant and searching led me only to here and Wiktionary (I actually have a physical OE dictionary that does include wæpenwifestre that I saw later, but no e-less variant). I added a citation to it here, and requested a deletion on Wiktionary to remove the ghost form that seems to be producing citogenesis. Inimicvs-voster (talk) 13:12, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article uses terminology connected to and associated with modern leftist LGBT political movements, and seems to be an attempt to find a historical justification for said movement. This word is merely a gloss for "hermaphrodite", and attempts to tie it to the modern LGBT movements are anachronistic and pseudohistorical. ~2025-38526-74 (talk) 05:28, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The categories are very telling: "Intersex history", "Transgender history in the United Kingdom", "Third gender", "Medieval LGBTQ history". ~2025-38526-74 (talk) 05:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]