Gems For Royal Profit

Ottoman court chroniclers had definite notions of the past, and of the proper nature, use, and form of history. Oftentimes, they reveal these ideas in the prefaces of their works. An examination of seven prefaces from eighteenth-century court histories shows an ideal practice of history-writing quite different from modern understandings. This practice is intensely moral and practical; it also suggests that historians should produce works beautiful in-and-of-themselves. Like medieval and pre-modern European historiography, eighteenth-century Ottoman court chronicles aimed to be true and useful in an exemplary sense, and also pleasing to the senses. Truth, utility, and form were thus closely linked elements of good history-writing.