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
96
When this happens top officials do not work anymore. Weber's transformation of the concept
'ministeriales' - which is specific for the Western European Middle Ages - follows the
historical development, since 'ministeriales' is a term coined, not by the scientist who
reasons backwards from modern relations to the relations these developed from, but by the
historical subjects themselves. The reversal of the meaning of the word 'ministeriales' from
'servant' to 'minister' is caused by a historical development, in this case the influx of free
men, who brought the knightly lifestyle with them.
Weber calls the particular Western-European form of patrimonialism the 'estate' type of
patrimonialism, 'ständische Herrschaft'.
4. Estate patrimonialism: administration by free men
Under Weber's 'estate patrimonialism' the administrative staff appropriates some of the
powers of its office and the corresponding economic assets.
32
This becomes possible when
the ruler is not able to maintain his officials directly. Originally the officials were fed at the
lord's table, but in a bigger empire this is not possible; there they need their own sources of
income: benefices or fiefs.
Benefices may consist of the fees the official claims for official acts, or they may consist of
land: 'Amts- oder Dienstland'. Possession of land entails risks for the official, since he is
dependent on what it yields; but land also enables him to found a family. For the work he
'could hire a more or less proletarian deputy'
33
.
Remuneration of officials causes decentralization. Although in principle a benefice can be
revoked, in reality it makes officials independent. Once they have families, they strive for
independence and thus for lifelong and, finally, hereditary appropriation of the benefice. In
my terms: they strive to attain social masculinity, to become real patriarchs.
34
The offices
become 'stereotyped', the officials performing only specified, fixed tasks, and resisting every
attempt at change
35
. The influx of free men who live according to the rules of the knightly
stratum and who 'naturally declined to handle routine tasks' into the administrative staff
reinforces this process.
36
The process of the stereotyping of offices as a result of the appropriation of benefices 'took
place especially in the early period of the modern patrimonial-bureaucratic state', most
prominently in the Papal Curia and in France, to a lesser extent in England.
37
In France the
appropriation of offices 'made it virtually impossible to dismiss officials', since the Crown had
to refund the purchase price of the benefice once an official had been dismissed.
38
conventions in his relations with them', ES p. 1026/7, WG p. 595.
32
ES p. 232, 1028, WG p. 134, 596.
33
ES p. 1033, WG p. 598.
34
This is the most important reason why the rulers prefer to employ celibate clerics; the word 'clerk' is derived
from them.
35
ES p. 1036 ff., WG p. 602 ff.
36
'In the course of this typification the old court officials became purely representative dignitaries and benefice-
holding sinecurists; this was especially true of the officials of the most powerful lords, who chose no longer unfree
men as court officials but nobles who naturally declined to handle routine tasks', ES p. 1040/41, WG p. 604.
37
ES p. 1032/3, WG p. 599.
38
'If the king tried to impose his will upon the 'parlements' (the highest court authorities, ES p. 1033), he could be
thwarted in case of need by a general strike - mass resignation which would have forced him to pay back the total
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