Each prince is associated with a cardinal direction: north, south, east and west.
What the hell is a "cardinal" direction? I've never heard that. Rome? Prince? CARDINAL?
Interesting.
It’s an astrological term. The four signs of the Cardinal Quadriplicity are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. These four signs are associated with the change of the four seasons and thus the four directions.
Why do we call them the cardinal directions, anyway?
“Cardinal” comes from the early 14th century and was derived from the Latin cardinalis (”principal, chief, essential”).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction
The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the directions north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W. East and west are perpendicular (at right angles) to north and south, with east being in the clockwise direction of rotation from north and west being directly opposite east. Points between the cardinal directions form the points of the compass.
The intercardinal (also called the intermediate directions and, historically, ordinal) directions are northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW). The intermediate direction of every set of intercardinal and cardinal direction is called a secondary intercardinal direction, the eight shortest points in the compass rose that is shown to the right (e.g. NNE, ENE, and ESE).