Number Of Venal Offices example essay topic

The Move From Aristocracy To Bureaucracy Discuss This View Of The Development Of States Within Thi This question assumes much about the nature of an aristocracy in a Europe that saw countries such as Turkey where, until around 1570, the aristocracy was almost negligible to Russia, where the boyars of Ivan IV are believed by some to have replaced the Tsar himself. In a continent of such diversity, there is bound to be a different reasoning for each form of aristocracy and the development of each state. The schism is particularly strong between Western and Eastern Europe. In the fifteenth century, the Papal schism, the accession of such characters as Charles VI of France, the repeated minorities in Scotland and the limited constitutional power of the Holy Roman Emperor lent western rulers a dependence on their nobles who started the period as the best educated large class of lay people reliable for use at court, but this would soon change, aided by the growth of educational institutes, founded on the spur of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The death of the feudal army or fyrd was vital in decreasing the importance of the nobility. Experienced mercenaries were hired across Europe with their experienced veteran captains.

Henry V hired Scots, Spaniards, Gascons, Portuguese, Italians, Albanians, Greeks, Tatars, Germans, Burgundians and Flemings according to one contemporary whilst Michael Romanov kept 17,400 mercenaries in his service. His son, Alexis, employed 60,000 by 1663. Until the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, the French border along the Spanish Road was guarded by 10,000 Swiss pikemen. Removing the need to rely on the aristocracy as ones source of military power removed a vital part of the nobilitys hold on the monarchy and took away all of their power to insist on politica influence. The destruction of nobility in battle, such as that of the Scots at Flodden not only reinforced the need for professional soldiers but reaffirmed the decline of the soldier-noble as a class, and set the tone for an era of downsizing and demoting the old noblesse depee.

The muzzling of the aristocracy and the power to patronise the lower nobility increased the power of monarchies through this age. Bodin wrote that the only truly royal states in Early Modern Europe were England, Spain and France, and it is with these category of states that we will start. France was a strongly monarchical state that, from the reign of Francis I, openly held venal offices. The growth of offices throughout the period and of the office-holding class was more advanced in the French kingdom than elsewhere. Between 1515 and 1665, the number of venal offices rose from 4,000 to 46,000 and the amount of revenue they produced was reckoned to be about 419 million livres five times the annual royal budget. As a result of ennoblement through these channels, the noblesse de robe emerged to challenge the three ancient estates (leading some historians to suggest, probably mistakenly, that the gentry wished to form a fourth estate), and in line with the increase in the sale of offices, they increased the power of their class.

Whereas Henri II and Francois I had courts filled with princes of the blood, dukes, peers and great officers (reflecting the roots of the noblesse dpe), by the late sixteenth century, the power of the old aristocrats even at the highest levels was being eroded. In 1594, the Constable Montmorency-Damville sat on the Royal Financial Commission with three other great nobles, but by 1598, with the exception of the Protestant Sully, the Kings council was a representation of the noblesse de robe. The accumulation of offices in France in some cases did reinforce the aristocracy as they bought they way to influence, and in some cases, wealthier aristocrats amassed such a number of offices of such influence that they could become local sovereigns. This is paradoxical, given that a strong argument for the cultivation of the culture of venality was as a means to counter the growing irritation of the local Parlements and estates that were enforcing forms of local independence.

However, in general, this era saw a usurping of the great nobles by the gentry. The growth of the influence of the gentry was not just recognition of the growth of their numerical strength and improved status as noblesse de robe, but as a result of the faction and intrigue that pervaded Frances old nobility throughout the Wars of Religion. As a result, the nobility tended only to return to favour as regards appointments during exceptional cases of excellence or during times of royal weakness. (For example, Gaston and Conde were recalled to the royal chambers during the minority of Louis XIV.) Louis XIVs reign, starting in 1661, typifies the trend: of his seventeen councillors, just two were from old aristocratic houses. Not only were the old nobility racked with ancient grudges and prone to faction, but they almost universally lacked the legal training necessary to maintain a seventeenth century administrative position.

By the advent of the seventeenth century, all that the nobility were fit for were regional posts and army or ecclesiastical positions. Whilst the high nobility suffered, the robins (lawyers) gained a monopoly over the sercretaryships in all of the sections of royal affairs requiring routine administration and in the sovereign courts. It must be realised that the old system of old families dominating the court had neither stigma nor problem for Early Modern Europe. It was the order in which things lay. As such, the growth of legal and financial noblesse de robe dynasties was a hallmark of this era. The Phelypeaux family provided nine secretaries of state without a break between 1610 and 1777 whilst the Nicolay family provided the nine first presidents of the Chambre des Comptes of Paris between 1506 and 1791.

By 1521, Francois I was complaining that most of the offices of the kingdom, of all types, are owned in expectancy. Paradoxically, given their nouveau riche means, the old hereditary principle of office was actually reinforced by the noblesse de robe, who having bought offices, saw them as bought property and as a means of reinforcing their membership of the second estate. Although Francois insisted that one had to survive the changeover of office by forty days in order to prevent the establishment of new dynasties and to allow the reversion of offices back to the Crown for their resale, the droit annuel was later adopted in exchange for the forty days rule, as a means of extracting money from the offices. Time-shared offices were opposed at every turn, and eventually the format for the retention of offices was of offices that could be inherited, but which were taxed.

The price of offices was hit by inflation, which although reflected by the tied-in droit annuel, made offices unobtainable by the royalty, so the crown could not benefit from the rise in values. As another consequence of the inflation, the Crown could not afford to buy any offices and so could not reform them. The growth in offices occurred at all levels. Offices, such as the businesses of urban fishmongers, were soon acquired by the government in an attempt to raise more revenue, but they succeeded only in confusing the convoluted societal structure further. With offices out of the price range of the government, reform of the system was impossible. Revenue was raised by the sale of new offices, created by adding layers upon layers were added to the state administrative system.

The Parlements recorded feelings of being threatened by a new executive justice across the kingdom. The French bureaucratic class grew massively, though most of the posts were redundant (the old taille office found itself monitoring the activities of a new office in charge of all taxes and levies) and so reduced the number of bureaucrats without increasing the active power of the government. However, it is important to remember that with the bought offices, many of the supposed bureaucrats were almost of amateur status, and can not really be judged to be bureaucrats in the spirit of the question. The growth of venal government never extended as high as the kings Chief Ministers. The ministries were never purchasable offices and they relied on personal contact with the King for their appointment. At this level, it is fair to say that a professional bureaucracy rose up, although whether one can regard the attitude of Richelieu as being any different to his predecessors is debatable.

Not a professional, in the modern sense of the word, he did use the position for personal financial gain (to the tune of three million livres per annum) as did his predecessors. Indeed, the nature of the post might suggest that although the post was meritocratic, it had always been so. This was not modernisation on the part of the Renaissance kings, so much as royal common sense Louis XIVs decision to rule alone reflects that the kings advisers needed to be suitably meritorious and that they were just a help to pragmatic kings (it is hard to believe that the egocentric Sun King would have found anyone that he trusted more than himself.) Had there ever been more than pragmatic realism to the post, then the ceremony-obsessed Louis would probably have had one. Richelieu and de Mazarin were Frances two most illustrious Ministers and royal friendship was their sole qualification. The importance of the royal ministries was the power to appoint, sack and reform ministers and ministries.

Richelieu was able to clear the court of redundant offices (such as Admiral and Constable) by 1627, reflecting the diminishing of the importance of the old hierarchy in favour of a new system. The Kings Council was rapidly becoming less noble, as typified by the afore-mentioned selection preferences of Louis XIV, and ministers of state were therefore less subservient to the Council. The Council of State, formed in 1643, met passing statutes in the presence of the king and decrees in his absence. Ministers for individual areas emerged, and foreign affairs ministers, financial ministers and military ministers were all mandated by the rise of Louis XIV.

Vitally, this system not only reserved the king the power of appointment taken away by the venal offices, but also allowed a meritocracy to emerge at the highest levels of government. Although the French system was more open to newcomers than its formality might suggest, it is important to remember that by the eighteenth century, the noblesse de robe and the noblesse depee were indistinguishable, and that although the later system was more competent, excluding those lacking judicial training, it was by no means a bureaucracy. Indeed, it was with the aim of joining the aristocracy that bureaucrats emerged. Although the venality of the French system was very extreme, it is a good example of the muzzling of the aristocracy and the rise of the educated lower gentry and noblesse de robe.

A pattern that occurs elsewhere, although for different reasons. In Spain, similar diminuation of the great offices was occurring although the extensive scale of venal offices was not so great. As such, in 1520 the Constable and Admiral were given joint regency with Adrian of Utrecht, a deviation from the normal path of Spanish government made in order to win over the rapidly weakening Castilian nobility. Charles V had stopped having a Secretary of State by 1530, and instead deferred such responsibility to a pair of secretaries of state.

The movement from these secretaries to real ministries only came under Olivares who set up a Junta de Ejecucion to make a centralised policy to circumvent the twelve Cortes. The Juntas were sabotaged and abolished by 1643 and Spain once more became a politically fragmented and regionalist country, closer to a monarquia than a monarchy. Olivares was attempting to cripple the Cortes system and the regional assemblies because it was precisely counter to the meritocratic system that had produced him. The royal council of Castile had been dominated by the great nobility theoughout the fifteenth century and faction had overruled real political questions. As such, after 1480, the nobles lost the right to vote on affairs of state.

Although the 1504-6 and 1516-22 crises demonstrated their continued power, by the 1530's they were finally reduced to the position that Olivares wanted them. The replacement of the Spanish aristocracy required the intake of large numbers of letrados (University trained jurists) and they soon came to dominate the corregidores the posts of administration and justice. They brought about a rapid improvement in the general standard of justice in Spain, but they were soon corrupted and by the seventeenth century they represented the interests of local grandees. Murcias official in 1647 protected bandits and promoted smuggling out of Portugal. The era saw the rise of the educated lesser nobility, in accordance with the rise of education in Spain. The two Castilian universities became twenty by 1620, making Spain one of the best educated countries in Europe.

The thirteen Aragonite universities and twenty Castilian institutions supplied all of the twenty-four judges in the Chancelleria of Valladolid, and fifty of Philip IVs hundred councillors were university professors. Most were from northern Spanish families who had been ennobled within three generations. Philip IVs council of Castile was entirely run by letrados whilst the Audencias (Courts of Appeal) were also effectively run by the letrados. Due to the improvement in the education of the judges and magistrates, there was no real control of the lawyers by the monarchy, which meant that, in Olivares words justice fell into total abandon, as the justices went unmonitored. As such, hereditary posts developed and a venal culture developed. Carlos IIs reign (1665) saw a commentator observe that there are those who occupy their offices as though they bought them and that dignities were made into inheritances or sales.

The Castilian crown started to sell offices formally and raised 90 million ducats between 1619 and 1640. Important positions for the localities became semi-hereditary posts and cities were almost self-governing by the 1700's. Although Charles V halted further ennoblements through offices, this period saw the growth of the lower aristocracy, replacing the grandees as the real power-base in Spain. In England, a similar pattern occurs, but it is not due to the growth of lay education so much as the faction of the English aristocracy. Within two generations of the end of the War of the Roses, no Tudor was likely to allow the build up of any more dynastic rivals, especially given their own inability to get heirs. Henry V's reliance on mercernaries over domestic troops was another aspect of his emasculation of the nobility.

Equally, the need to exclude the monasteries from the royal administration encouraged the growth of the lower noble bureaucracy. Although there was no Eltonian New Monarchy in this time, it is fair to say that we do see an improved recognition for educated ordinary men in the English court. Wolsey was the son of an Ipswich butcher, and according to Elton, Cromwell was a Putney wide-boy. Although the era brings a new opportunity for the advancements of ordinary people at the court, this was the result of the development from chamber finance to exchequer economics and the subsequent movement from arrogance about the rights of noble to a marginally more egalitarian arrogance about the rights of the educated man.

In France and Spain, we see the growth of the lower nobility and upper gentry into a class of administrators that in many cases bought their way into the state structure, and then passed their position on, so creating not a bureaucracy, but a new elite. The old oligarchy that relied on the financial and military power of nobles and used the churchs resources, especially after Martin vs. drive for ecclesiastical administrative power following the schism to restore papal prestige, was replaced by an oligarchy of lay clerks drawn from the bloated educated class. This is a pattern repeated in other western states. In Germany, the rights and privileges of the nobility were well recorded.

The Imperial Knights (Ritterschaft) formed leagues and contested their position with their local dukes and electors constantly throughout the period. Their protests were in reference to the growth of a new class that the Spanish and French would have recognised. The educated lower castes being churned out by the masses of newly formed universities (there were just five universities in 1400, there were 18 by 1520) were taking posts in local governments previously held by men of their calibre. In The Order of Knights by vs. Guenzberg, the author claims that any Tom, Dick and Harry, any drunks, clerks and financiers were running the Empire.

Their protests continued until 1522-3 when the Knights War brought the elector of Triers in to crush them. Their defeat did not diminish their importance and their Imperial rights remained intact until the nineteenth century, but the trend of recruiting educated men over noblemen continued. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, there is a very different story. In Russia, the lack of trained personnel kept the nobility, with their military and economic power, firmly in control.

Ivan IVs government has been criticised for the weakness of the throne, since the Duma was so aristocratic and so powerful. The provision of ambassadors, generals and governors, as well as policies, administrative structure and day to day government was left in the hands of the Duma, and the Dumas size reflected the size of the boyar class. Vasili left a group of boyars the regency after his death. Only 28 of the 62 families represented in the pre-1645 council were left in the Duma in 1668 such was the vulnerability of the boyars to autocratic rulers, as well as demography. The Muscovites were effectively running a medieval government throughout this period, and the strongly feudal structure, the lack of educational establishments and the dominance of the boyars prevented any social mobility whatsoever, and the system of Muscovite government remained unaffected by the upheavals of education, society, religion and art going on elsewhere. In Poland, the nobility were technically all equal, although the rights of the lesser nobility were sometimes compromised by the stronger nobility.

Ladislas IV hoped to weaken the large noble class by playing on these gradations and creating a royal bloc in the gentry. Culminating in a scheme to build a chivalric order, he did not succeed, and the large noble class remained as powerful as before. The kings power came from his right to appoint the sixteen officers of state. These offices were ministries, but due to the faction of the nobles had to be appointed within the noble class, and due to the life-ministries that were conferred, turnover was slow. Grandee families could thus build up power within the court easily simply by taking two or three of the key posts. The permeation of the nobility from these posts right down through the judicial system and local government.

Magnates possessing large private armies and massive financial power were easily in a position to threaten the crown if reform was attempted and the elite nature of the nobles was protected by the magnates. As such, the king was stuck with choosing and appointing within the noble pool. Entrenched nobility was not prevalent just across the unroyal states. Sweden was run by an aristocratic class with a monopoly on the important posts of state and the rad (council) was run by the same families for generations. Gustav Bonde was called in 1727 to sit in the Royal Council, and sat as the twentieth successive member of his family to serve in that role. The Oxenstierna family and Bielke family had a lawsuit that was abandoned for want of impartial jurors, simply thanks to the power of the two families.

Queen Christina made attempts to break the grip of these families. Selling off masses of Crown land to anyone who could afford them, sextupling the number of counts and doubling the number of noble families, Christina cynically tried to dilute the old order. The lower nobility protested louder than the conceited grandees, and appointments were soon constitutionally bound to be on grounds of merit as opposed to rewards for service in war (the pretext for Chrsitinas sell-off). However, the new nobility had expanded to take in a great number of new families and until the 1650's, the government ran many venal posts. The new nobility was thus able to buy posts in the government with their new titles.

Like Muscovy and Poland, there was a lack of trained personnel, and the nobles, despite their lack of education and Christinas best efforts, continued to dominate Swedish government. In Ottoman Turkey, there is an inverse situation to Western Europe. Whereas the Westerners moved from an uneducated class of noblemen running the country, the devshirme (child tribute system) of Turkey maintained the prowess of the Turkish civil service throughout. The Sultans council of muftis ensured the religious purity of royal actions and could demand tyrannicide, and this was performed once during the fourteenth century. The devotion of the Empire to Islam protected it from tyrants who were debauched at the Empires expense. Although Suleiman wore silks and committed other infringements, the muftis were never discontented enough with him to demand tyrannicide, as the Sultan knew that should he cross the line dividing service of the Empire from service of ones service, then the professional muftis would order his death.

The throwing of a previous from a tower by a Janissary guardsman was warning enough for anyone. However, the weakening old Sultans long reign saw decay in the Empire. Without a young king to monitor all of its affairs, the masterful Grand Vizier Sokollu started to sell offices for his own personal profit, and when the inept Selim II came to power, the Empire had already begun to sell itself away. Although key roles were never for sale, he set a precedent followed by Selims drinking partner and doctor, who succeeded him. When preparing to aid the Moriscos revolt, Sokollu was redirected to take Cyprus, a great source of wine, for the drunkard Sultan. The absolute naval defeat following the conquest at Lepanto required massive rebuilding that would bankrupt a previous plentiful treasury.

In order to raise funds, the devshirme stopped supplying candidates for certain posts, and Moslem boys were admitted to the devshirme. By the 1630's, the Civil Service was actually less well educated than previously, and an aristocracy had developed. Admiralties and Vizierships were held in families for generations, despite there not being an official principle of hereditary ownership outside the House of Osman in the Empire. To conclude, in the west, this era saw the growth of professionals as an elite class. Both warfare and administration reached levels of complication at which it was necessary to have specific training and experience in order to function. Fed by the new universities, a new elite sprung up and established itself in positions once held by the old families, in some cases with a greater degree of entrenchment.

Despite this new egalitarianism, this was no social revolution and was certainly the start of no New Monarchy as Elton claimed. This era merely saw the aristocracy augmented by a new class of professional administrators. In effect, a new educated element was allowed accession to the aristocracy. Social mobility was marginally increased, but there was no real bureaucracy anywhere. The idea of professional civil services was some way off. In the east, stagnation occurred, and countries failing to keep up with the modernisation of government soon fell behind.

Sweden and Turkey in particular would have a hard time repeating the successes of Osman, Suleiman and Gustavus Adophus unless they reformed quickly. This question assumes much about the nature of an aristocracy in a Europe that saw countries such as Turkey where, until around 1570, the aristocracy was almost negligible to Russia, where the boyars of Ivan IV are believed by some to have replaced the Tsar himself. Removing the need to rely on the aristocracy as ones source of military power removed a vital part of the nobilitys hold on the monarchy and took away all of their power to insist on political influence.