88116 The nobility state relationship (9)

200 - Atutmi MęczaJt

sensę: who was a truć noble? What was the reJadvc importance of old blood (and old gołd) and what of senice to the sovereign>“

NoWessede robę (senice or ‘robę' nobility) was not exdusively characteristic of France, but because the ennoblement of traditional office-holders and modem bureaucrats. the fcnctumnairrs. was very common, it created a situation that was diflerent from that tvpical of countries of the Empire, where the noble office-holders wete seated lace to face with the erudire coundliors (gelehrten Rdten) of commoner status. In Germany, the State senice, chiefly mili tary, was their normal lot. In France, the nobility disapproved of the paulette, not because the sale of offices had pre\ioush⁷ been unknown but chiefly because it brutaiły ezposed the new pnndple determimng the composition of the elites and the cash nezus as their creadwe facror.

In France, the nobłesde race (inhented nobility) mostły had neither the legał edu-canon nor the pracncal knowledge necessary to en ter the ranks of the absolutist bureaucracv; their educadon, while irnproving greatły from the 1620S, was hardly cwer-academic.¹* As an estate. they had no altemative solution to the sale of offices. This simabon did not necessarily occur in the countries where the legał, and ałso the formal mili tary, educadon of the well-bom was sodally morę accept-ahle: in the Netheriands as eariy as the fifteenth cen tury, in England from the reign ofEłizabeth. in most other countries from the seventeenth cen tury only.

Ennoblement was in many countries among the most predous prerogatives of rulers. As long as the stare roughly maintained its feudal character, it was fulły compadble with the tradidonal self control of membership executed by the well bora neighbours, the peers, or by formal Estate insdtutions. But this was an element of power too predous to be disregarded when the State was inereasing its sphere ofdeosiw influence.

Ironkafly. insome countries atłeast, bureaucradc govemment structures devel-oped in tandem with the princes charisma and strengthened it. This was particu-larly characteristic of northem Italy. From Savoy (which, like Denmark, has been undervalued in histoncal writmg as a dassic case of absoludsm) come these some-what bizarre lega] rules of what may be called ennoblement by charisma’: ‘Membership of the notariate derogates nobility eicept for those who are notaries of the prince. Ewn the princes cook has a dignity [habetdignitatem] ... [A] wet

“ A substarmal and fundamenta! discussion sińce the Middłe Ages has created an immense literaturę on the subject which can neither be ęjuoted nor diwincaed herc: see Donan (1986).

¹³ For the generał situanon in tbe i8th cenc: Ford (1953), 218, 221. A solid legał educadon was listed among significant career factors of the intendants under the great cardinals: Bon-ney (1978), 90,91; see ałso eh. 4 for their sodal origins.

The Nobility-StaU Relatimship im

nurse of che prince is not only noble buc also bestows nobility upon a commoner whom she marries/¹⁴

Ennoblement and the bestowal of honorary hereditary tides was becoming a predominantly fiscal measure. The inflation ofhonours was a virtualły European-wide phenomenon which did little to improve the State s revenues, whereas it could easily damage the vested interests of the elites.

In the eariy modern State, ennoblement became strictły controlled thmugb spedal bureaucratic agenci es. In the Empire, formal control over the elites (botfa the nobility, or Reichsadel, and the patriciates of the Rcicksstadte) remained a pre-rogative of the Emperors until the end of the eighteenth century, erecutedby the Viennese bureaucracy. But the Rcichsfunten (imperial princes) were mcreasingly independent, particularly after the Peace of Westphałia (1648). They succeeded in creatmg their own territoriaT elites and, in most cases, consciousły cormened for-mal advancement with the performance of office and with service to the raler The third reason the monarch needed the nobility—Bacon s shock absorber factor—was dosely connected with the ownership ofiarni and paiticokriy nnpor-tant in the east. Serfdom assumed the direct dependence of the peasants aa their lord who to a certain degree, but in some countries virtually completek, repre-sented the State in their eyes. In Denmark, according to the Hałmscad Charter of 1483, repeated later in a statute issued in Kolding, the landłord shall be king over his own tenants’. In Poland, the legał position of tenants was never formulated in such elear terms, but from the 1520S the royal courcs in Poland were forbkkłen kom hearing disputes be twe en lord and peasant.

In the duchy of Pomerania, in the north-east comer of the Empire, in 1606 the terms of Roman law which defined the serf’s status madę him virtualły a sław. In mostof Germany after 1525, the peasant rebellions raised for the properoed dasses the problem of effective security against the mob.

One of Perry Anderson s principal theses on absolutem is that ‘the Absolutni State in the East... was a device for the consolidation of serfdom, in a landscape scoured of autonomous uiban life or resiscance.³⁵ Sharp east-west dmswn is a gross simpłification but it is probably possible co agree that ‘the dose of vioknce pumpedinto social relations was [in the countries of serfdom] correspondmgfy far grcater. The Absolutist State in the East never lost the sign of this original experi-enee.’ It is hard to measure violence, so it may be safer to argue that, where serfdom prevailed, the modern State ceded some of its fonebons to the landowaeis who were in a better position to exerdse control over the peasantry and had

³⁴ A. Favre, De summa trinitate etjide catholica et ut nemo de m jmMkz amttnierr amdeel (i6o6\ Dę/mitumes iv,m, ąuotedafter Donan (19S8), 179- This treanse refleaed thepohncal and religious prindples of the absołutism of Charles Emmanuel 1, Donan    178-

³³ Anderson (1974). 196-