I've had two fine resources pointed out to me by Lena, a friend from Nordmark, which I'm now adding to the blog to share them.
The first is a link to Ex Urbe.com, a charming blog subtitled History Philosophy Books Food & Fandom, which should be enough to encourage anyone to at least take a look.
Specifically, it's the posts tagged Machiavelli that Lena recommended, as a fine introduction to that author, and the author of the next work, The Prince, suggested for reading in the winter, and discussion in the spring. Suggest reading the posts in date order, rather than the order they appear when selecting by tags.
Secondly, at a recent revel in Thamesreach, Lena brought me a copy of a 'King's Mirror' I'd never heard of: Konungs skuggsjá, or Speculum Regale, a Norwegian work dated around 1250 (link to Wikipedia summary).
It's available from archive.org (PDF and assorted reading formats), and in HTML, as a transcription of an early 20th century translation.
I'll be adding it to the list of resources, and suggest it as the book to follow Machiavelli's The Prince in the new year.
The first part seems a summary of natural wonders - a sort of overview of marvellous things that a king ought to know about; the scond and third parts are about the court, and about the nature of justice. It's the second and third parts that interest me, though don't let that stop you from reading part I.
Why this book? Partly because someone took the time to recommend it; partly because it's a change from the well-known titles we're starting with; and partly to combat my own ignorance of northern European medieval literature.
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