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 v. 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 Knight?s 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 IV?s 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
Duma?s size reflected the size of the boyar class.? Vasili III 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 king?s 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 Chrsitina?s sell-off).?
However, the new nobility had expanded to take in a great number of new
families and until the 1650s, 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 Christina?s 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 Sultan?s 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 Empire?s
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 one?s 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 Sultan?s 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
Selim?s drinking partner and doctor, who succeeded him.? When preparing to aid the Morisco?s 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 1630s, 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. 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 VIII 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 one?s source of
military power removed a vital part of the nobility?s hold on the monarchy and
took away all of their power to insist on political 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 d?epee.? 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 d??p?e), 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
King?s 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 France?s 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 XIV?s 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