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
97
The position of the patrimonial official under the estate type of patrimonialism thus appears
to be highly ambiguous: even if he is born free, he is formally an unfree dependent of the
patrimonial lord, whom he owes 'a servant's loyalty based on a strictly personal
relationship'
39
and who formally can punish him for disobedience. The degree of his actual
dependence and the degree in which he has to obey the ruler depends on the ruler's power
and on his 'purely personal ability to assert his will'.
40
.
Weber does not analyze the contradictions in the status conventions of the patrimonial
officials which result from the ambiguity of their position. When he analyzes the mentality
('Gesinnung') of patrimonial officials, as contrasting with that of feudal knights
41
, he does not
speak of the officials of estate patrimonialism, but of those of patriarchal patrimonialism.
Only by leaving out the contradictions in the positions of the diverse kinds of patrimonial staff
he analyzed before, he is able to construct a consistent ideal type of political patrimonialism.
Weber's extensive description of the typical developments of patrimonial officialdom in
Western Europe from the Middle Ages until 'the early period of the modern patrimonial-
bureaucratic state', therefore does not lead to a further analysis of the specific - 'ständisch':
estate-like or status-like - character of early European patrimonial bureaucracies. This
omission is all the more striking, since feudalism proper, the performing of military and
administrative tasks by fief-holders, also developed beside patrimonialism and influenced it:
the definitive 'Standenstaat' was a compromise between patrimonial king, feudal nobility and
cities.
The only passages in Weber's text where he reports feudal influences on the status
conventions of patrimonial officials are those where he contrasts Western European
administrations, in which the officials form knightly status groups with a corresponding status
honor, with those in a country like Russia where such official status groups did not develop.
42
According to Weber the Occidental ministeriales followed 'a central guide to social conduct
in the form of a distinctive traditional ethic reinforced by education', including 'a personal
"honorable" relationship to the lord' and a 'personal sense of dignity':
'The Occidental ministeriales, whose social honor depended on the lord's favor, and the English gentleman of the
squirearchy, whose social honor was determined by autonomous notability, were both, although in different ways,
bearers of a peculiar, personal sense of dignity whose root was personal honor, not only the prestige of office. In
the case of the ministeriales it is obvious and in that of the English gentleman it can easily be seen that their
basic attitudes were influenced by Occidental k n i g h t h o o d.
'
43
Here Weber, wanting to isolate the typical Western-European factors, describes Occidental
ministeriales and English 'gentlemen' who are decisively influenced by feudalism. To be able
to answer the question why 'the fully developed Ständestaat as well as the fully developed
purchase value of all benefices; this happened repeatedly before the revolution', ES p. 1034/5, WG p. 600.
39
ES 1031, WG p. 598.
40
ES p. 1042, WG p. 605.
41
ES p. 1104 ff., WG p. 650 ff., see below Ch. 8,9.
42
ES p. 1064 ff., WG p. 621 ff., see below Ch. 8,4.
43
ES p. 1068, WG p. 623.
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