Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 6. Feudalism. Decentralization of patrimonialism into political domination by an hierarchy of
free men
107
It is of interest to note that the remunerations of the justices of the peace, their fees and daily
allowances, were so low, that it became status convention for them to refuse them; in
contrast to most other offices, which were coveted for their chances of profit, this office was
therefore truly honorary. For quite a few men it was only titular; others, however, supported
by clerks, actually performed part of the work. The justices of the peace even succeeded, in
spite of the increase in administrative tasks, in driving out the professional jurists, who could
no longer compete with amateurs who refused all fees, and who fulfilled the office only to
acquire a 'real and practically unrestrained influence'
51
.
Since the office was unpaid, however, it could only be held by rentiers of some kind; for this
reason it was held first, by members of the rural gentry, who increasingly leased their
properties, and later also by retired businessmen from the city. And so, in this framework of
officialdom, rural and urban rentiers merged into a stratum of 'gentlemen'.
52
The city rentiers, once they were admitted to the squirearchian circle, also influenced the
'spirit' of the justices of the peace; they 'effectively transformed and rationalized it'. This
happened even before 'the penetration of Puritanism', which would effect another
transformation in which 'the squirearchic semifeudal features were gradually assimilated to
the ascetic, moralistic and utilitarian ones', although 'as late as the 18th century they were
opposed to each other.'
53
Weber treats the justices of the peace as an extremely marginal case of patrimonial
administration, emphasizing, however, the feudal influences on their lifestyle - which is
'knightly' - and on their status honor; he also sees a bourgeois influence working on these.
54
The justices of the peace are no vassals, having received neither their lands nor their offices
as fiefs; the tasks their office requires of them are an extension of the patrimonial
administration of the prince. Like the later patrimonial rulers on the continent, the justices of
the peace intervened in innumerable aspects of the life of the subject: they supervised all
kinds of activities which could vary 'from visits to the pub, cardplaying or the choice of
clothes proper to his station to the level of the corn prices and the adequacy of wages, and
from indolence to heresy'.
55
Yet it was up to them to determine the way and means of their interventions; their
administration was furthermore discontinuous and unsystematic, since it was 'essentially a
part-time occupation for gentlemen.'
56
For the cities this amateur administration was not
51
'The decisive incentive for the gentry's interest in the office of the justice of the peace was not some specific
"idealism", but the real and practically unrestrained influence which the office provided; formally it was limited
solely by the rule that all important issues should be settled only collegiately, by at least two judges together, but
substantively it was constrained by a strong sense of duty that derived from the status convention', ES p. 1061,
WG p. 618.
52
'The characteristic fusion of the rural and urban rentier strata in the type of the
'g e n t l e m a n' was greatly facilitated by their common ties to the office of the justice of the peace. In these
circles it became a status custom to have the sons appointed justices of the peace at an early age, after they had
finished their humanist education.' ES p. 1060, WG p. 618.
53
ES p. 1063, WG p. 620.
54
ES p. 1064, WG p. 620.
55
ES p. 1062, WG p. 619.
56
'technically unsuited to deal continuously and intensively with positive administrative tasks or to pursue a
consistent unified "welfare policy".''The notion of systematic administrative activity in the service of definite goals
was exceptional in these circles, (-) except an attempt to impose a coherent system of "Christian welfare policies"
during the brief period of the Stuarts, especially under Laud's administration, which was frustrated by the circles
from which the justices of the peace were recruited, ES p. 1062, WG p. 619.
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