Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 5 Expansion of patriarchy by decentralization and affiliation. Political patrimonialism as
masculine domination by an hierarchy of unfree men
93
subjects' are themselves 'masters': they are patriarchal lords over wives, children and
servants. Therefore they also are unable to perpetuate their domination by pure physical
coercion; they also need legitimacy.
One may conclude from Weber's analysis that 'affiliation' of free, weapon-bearing men is
most likely to take place in cases where the patrimonial lord is more powerful than the
associations of free men around him. The military power of the lord causes them to lose their
autonomous military significance; they are therefore no longer able to dominate their
dependents and to legitimate this dominance by membership of military confraternizations.
'Affiliation' is therefore a process in which status groups lose their autonomy and thus their
positive status. By way of compensation, however, they are supported by the power of the
patrimonial lord: they are incorporated or encapsulated in a patriarchal-patrimonial whole. In
this hierarchy there is only one real patriarch, one 'real man'
15
: the ruler, who is entitled to
treat all the other patriarchs like children, since they are no more than 'quasi-patriarchs'.
Under patrimonial rule, therefore, the 'manhood' of all male subjects can be no more than
ambiguous, as they all lack the opportunity to prove their masculinity once and for all by
membership of autonomous charismatic or quasi-charismatic status associations. The ruler
can violate their rights and freedoms.
Yet, as Weber explains, the 'patrimonial subjects' differ from the unfree personal retainers of
the lord. They keep the right to mobility, 'at least in principle', and owe the ruler 'traditional
and therefore fixed taxes'
16
; they can dispose freely of their property and also of their land,
bequeath their property according to custom and marry without the lord's consent; in legal
matters they have access to courts and they are allowed to resort to selfhelp by feuding. In
principle they have 'the right and hence also the duty to bear arms'.
17
The contradictions in
the concept 'political patrimonialism' are therefore not wholly resolved.
These contradictions also appear in the positions of the men the ruler uses as servants. The
patrimonial ruler may extract services from his subjects; this way of organizing the state
Weber calls 'the liturgical meeting of the ruler's political and economic needs'. When doing
so the ruler will try to make corporations, guilds and other vocational groups of subjects
collectively liable for these services, and he will even try to make those duties hereditary.
The result can be another delegation of power, in cases where 'certain of the public duties
which could only be fulfilled by the propertied members were delegated to the latter and, by
virtue of the resulting influence, became status rights of the propertied who proceeded to
monopolize them'
18
. A ruler who does not possess an extensive coercive apparatus,
therefore becomes dependent on those associations, who in this way gain autonomy; in
England this development even led to 'local administration by largely independent
honoratiores'
19
.
On the other hand a ruler with a strong army may reduce his subjects to total dependency,
binding them hereditarily to soil and occupation. If he strives for an 'optimal personal power
position', however, he will use his own officials for part of the services he needs. Thus in
both cases the ruler needs a body of officials.
20
15
Who also can be a woman, see Ch. 4, n. 95.
16
The manorial retainers have the same position in this respect.
17
As long 'as the feud is not outlawed by a general public peace edict (Landfrieden). ES p. 1020/1, WG p. 590/1.
18
'...: thus corporations, guilds and other vocational groups established, legalized or made compulsory by the
ruler become liable for specific services or contributions of their members', ES p. 1023, WG p. 592.
19
ES p. 1025, WG p. 593, see farther below, Ch. 6,6.
20
'On the other extreme a personal patrimonial dependence of all subjects could develop which tied the
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