Mirrors for Princes and Sultans: Advice on the Art of Governance in the Medieval Christian and Islamic Worlds by Lisa Blaydes, Justin Grimmery, and Alison McQueen.
Abstract:
Among the most signi cant forms of political writing to emerge from the medieval period are texts off ering advice to kings and other high-ranking ocials. Books of counsel varied considerably in their content and form; scholars agree, however, that such texts reflected the political exigencies of their day. As a result, writings in the “mirrors for princes” tradition o er valuable insights into the evolution of medieval modes of governance. While European mirrors (and Machiavelli’s Prince in particular) have been extensively studied, there has been less scholarly examination of a parallel political advice literature emanating from the Islamic world. We compare Muslim and Christian advisory writings from the medieval period using automated text analysis, identify sixty conceptually distinct topics that our method automatically categorizes into three areas of concern common to both Muslim and Christian polities, and examine how they evolve over time. We o er some tentative explanations for these trends.
If you don’t know the phrase, “mirrors for princes,”:
texts that seek to off er wisdom or guidance to monarchs and other high-ranking advisors.
Since nearly all bloggers and everyone with a byline in traditional media considers themselves qualified to offer advice to “…monarchs and other high-ranking advisors,” one wonders how the techniques presented would fare with modern texts?
Certainly a different style of textual analysis than is seen outside the humanities and so instructive for that purpose.
I do wonder about the comparison of texts in translation into English. Obviously easier but runs the risk of comparing translators to translators and not so much the thoughts of the original authors.
I first saw this in a tweet by Christopher Phipps.