Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 7 The city: new fraternities of patriarchs
135
military functions, who worked alongside the communal officials; they were technically aided
by the statistical material amassed by the communes and the account- and record-keeping
techniques developed by the banking houses. According to Weber the influence of the
examples of Venice - an autonomous city - as well as that of the Sicilian - patrimonial -
kingdom were more important, but this influence 'probably worked more through stimulation
than by way of direct adoption.'
113
Analyzing, in his conceptual exposition, the restraining influence of patrimonialism on
rational economic activity Weber presents the influence the cities exerted on the expansion
of patrimonialism as based on the financial support for the several competing patrimonial
powers and as one of the conditions for the creation of a rational bureaucratic apparatus;
another condition was the availability of specialized legal training.
114
In this way he again
presents the rationalization of patrimonial administration as an autonomous process, which
received only financial support from the cities. The rationalization of education in the cities,
however, could be seen as one of the indirect influences of the cities on the rationalization
process; for according to Weber the university-trained guilds especially those of the jurists,
played an important role in the rationalization of administration and law after the city
revolutions.
Weber states further that a coalition between patrimonial rulers and burghers did not serve
only the financial interests of the rulers, but also served their own social and economic
interests.
115
An important 'social' interest of the burghers, in my analysis, would be the
maintenance of their status position as patriarchs towards vis-à-vis their own dependents.
The working male population of the cities had an even stronger interest in patrimonial
affiliation and pacification, since they had no influence in city politics, and therefore no
interest in city autonomy. In France the kings managed to subject the cities with the help of
petit-bourgeoisie interests; the Italian city dictatorships were also based on the support of the
craft workers. Weber, who did not recognize the patriarchal interests of the small bourgeois,
explains this development by combining economical arguments with mass-psychological
ones: according to him the petit bourgeoisie supported patrimonialism partly in the hope that
the presence of a court would be economically advantageous to them, and partly 'because
the masses everywhere are emotionally responsive to the display of personal power'.
116
In my view the influence of the cities on patrimonial revival and rationalization is stronger and
more direct than is conceptualized in ES - indeed more like Weber described it in his
lectures. In the next two chapters I will discuss Weber's fragmented analysis of the
rationalization process of patriarchal patrimonialism, in order to be able to judge the
113
ES p. 1322, WG p. 788.
114
ES p. 240, WG p. 139. 'The situation is fundamentally different only in cases where a patrimonial ruler, in the
interest of his own power and financial provision, develops a rational system of administration with technically
specialized officials.' (On the next page Weber adds that this especially were 'persons with legal training both in
the civil and the canon law'). 'For this to happen, it is necessary 1) that technical training should be available; 2)
there must be a sufficiently powerful incentive to embark on such a policy - usually the sharp competition
between a plurality of patrimonial powers within the same cultural area; 3) a very special factor is necessary,
namely, the participation of urban communes as a financial support in the competition of the patrimonial units.'
115
'Here as everywhere, the very existence of a princely court created its own support in the form of growing
strata in the nobility and the bourgeoisie with social and economic vested interests.' ES p. 1319, WG p. 786.
116
ES p. 1319, WG p. 786.
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