Miroirs des princes

These codifications of the art of good government have a long history in Latin; moralists and churchmen such as John of Salisbury (in his Policraticus), Giraldus Cambrensis, Ramon Lull, and Gerson had for centuries designed programmes to promote true kingship. The later Middle Ages saw a number of similar works in the vernacular, among them Robert de Blois's Enseignement des princes (mid-13th c.), Watriquet de Couvin's Mireoir as princes (1327), or, less explicitly titled, Christine de Pizan's Livre du corps de policie (1404/7). The writers share a faith in the malleability of the child: tyranny is to be avoided by careful teaching and learning (clergie), without which a king is like an ass with a crown. The writers propose programmes to inculcate proper religious, moral, and intellectual development: exemplars are sought among the great of antiquity and the Bible, and more especially among the prince's own ancestry. The topics covered vary from the proper administration of justice to military science; the writers hope to inculcate both a proper humility and a sense of dynasty and mission. Later treatises, such as Erasmus's Institutio principis christiani (1516) or Nicole's Éducation d'un prince (1670), follow in the same tradition.

[Jane Taylor]