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Ramon Lull, Medieval poly­math from the Bal­aer­ic Islands

This impor­tant paper on medieval elec­toral the­o­ry does­n’t come from his­to­ri­ans, but from math­e­mati­cians. Their inter­est is that the medieval Cata­lan schol­ar Ramon Lull (or Llull) (b.1232‑d.1315) antic­i­pat­ed the math­e­mat­i­cal the­o­ries of elec­toral sys­tems of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry known to us through Bor­da and Con­dorcet. Appar­ent­ly, recent­ly dis­cov­ered medieval man­u­scripts reveal that Lull had devel­oped a quite sim­i­lar the­o­ry. This inter­ests me, of course, as the his­to­ry of elec­toral sys­tems is part of what I explore, but more impor­tant than the math­e­mat­i­cal accom­plish­ment is the impli­ca­tion that monas­tic insti­tu­tions in the Mid­dle Ages took elec­tion pro­ce­dures very seriously.