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684

year

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ31128
Source-derived summary

Year 684 (DCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 684 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Europe

Ghislemar, mayor of the palace in Neustria and Burgundy, dies after a 2-year reign, and is succeeded by his father Waratto. He makes peace between the three Frankish kingdoms.

Britain

King Ecgfrith of Northumbria sends a punitive expedition to Ireland under his ealdorman Berht, laying waste to the territory of Meath, ruled by High King Fínsnechta Fledach.

Arabian Empire

Caliph Mu'awiya II dies at Damascus, after a brief reign that ends Sufyanid rule. A new caliph is proclaimed in Syria amidst tribal wars, but Marwan I will reign until next year.

August 18 – Battle of Marj Rahit: Muslim partisans under Marwan I defeat the supporters of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr near Damascus, and cement Umayyad control of Syria.

Asia

January 3 – Zhong Zong succeeds his father Gao Zong, and becomes emperor of the Tang dynasty. His mother Wu Zetian remains the power behind the throne in China.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “684” is year. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through year, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 196-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, year is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “year” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q31128. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “684”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 684 primary sources, 684 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “684”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 684” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.