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PATRONAGE

PATRONAGE. Patronage ties and networks formed a quasi-universal system stretching across early modern Europe. Although the patronage system may have developed from feudal vassalage, patrons did not give their clients fiefs in return for service. Patron-client ties, which had appeared by the early fifteenth century, were based on more varied forms of reward than land, including money payments. Man-to-man personal ties of loyalty were still important in patronage, but there were no oaths of homage or fealty. Choice of patron was free, and obligations were not fixed. Patronage ties were more informal and their obligations less precise than those of feudal vassalage.

Great nobles at this time maintained large households of a hundred or more and sizable military retinues. Household members and military retainers were often clients, who received money payments and room and board for their service, but not land. In the 1530s the household of François La Trémoille (1502–1541) numbered between 90 and 100, of whom 27 were noble clients. In addition to room and board, they received substantial salaries with regular increases, gifts of cash and jewelry, annual pensions, clothing for special occasions, and money for traveling expenses. In 1507 the household of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham (1478–1521), numbered 130, of whom 100 ate prodigiously at his expense. The duke also clothed them, gave them occasional gifts, and employed their relatives, but he did not give them land.

Patronage was a system of personal ties and networks in which a patron or superior offered protection and support to an inferior or client, who owed him loyalty and service in return. Patron-client ties were voluntary, emotional bonds of loyalty between unequals who were linked vertically in mutual-assistance relationships. The type of assistance varied, but a patron had to reward the loyal service of a client if he wanted to keep it, and a client had to repay his generosity with loyal service if he wanted to receive patronage in future. The obligatory reciprocity of the patron-client relationship was its definitive characteristic. Beyond this, however, there were no exact requirements about what was exchanged or when. A kinsman became a client when he joined a patron-client network headed by a family member on whom he was dependent for advancement and to whom he owed loyal service in return. Kinship and marriage ties reinforced the loyalty of patron-client ties, and kin were often clients.

When Ferrara became part of the Papal States in 1598, Pope Clement VIII (1536–1605) made every effort to win the loyalty of leading families by giving them favors and benefits, particularly promotions to the cardinalate. In accepting benefits without returning them, the recipients incurred a debt that had to be repaid, and so became clients. Influential members of the Medici family frequently recommended clients to the same friend at a foreign court for the same job, which usually led to a puzzled request for clarification as to which candidate really enjoyed Medici support, and who should be appointed to satisfy the appointer's obligations as a Medici client. Fourteen of twenty-three, or approximately 60 percent, of the most trusted provincial clients of Henri II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville and governor of Normandy from 1619 to 1622, were connected to him by kinship and marriage ties.

The terminology of patronage is sometimes ambiguous, especially in English. The French patronage and the Italian patronato denote a superior's protection and support of an inferior, as does the English word patronage. In addition, the English word has a whole series of meanings that never existed in, or have disappeared from, the French and Italian. Patronage in English may also mean a kindness done with an air of superiority or condescension, the power to make appointments to office, a mode of recruitment to officeholding; that is, offices distributed on the basis of patronage, and the offices so distributed. These meanings do not exist in French or Italian. There is no separate word in English for cultural patronage, although the word in French is mécénat, in Italian mecenatismo, and in German Mäzenatentum. There is also some confusion about the meaning of the words friend and friendship used in a patronage context. Historically, the English word patronage refers to a system of personal ties and networks that was pervasive in early modern Europe. This system's effects on social mobility, cultural production, and political stability are discussed here.

ADVANCEMENT AND PATRONAGE

Patronage was necessary for advancement within the army, church, and government, and was essential to social mobility because the hierarchical societies of early modern Europe had limited advancement opportunities. Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé (1621–1686), who was Louis XIV's cousin, maintained at his own expense two infantry regiments, two ordinance companies, one cavalry company, and one guard company. His troops were incorporated within the royal army in which Condé himself held the rank of general. As a result, he appointed both the officers of his own troops and of the other troops under his command. From 1643 to 1648 he made recommendations for the promotion of thirty-five high-ranking army officers, and more than half his recommendations were accepted. Condé's patronage assured an individual of an army commission or promotion.

Family patronage was responsible for advancement within the papal states in the sixteenth century, both inside and outside the church. The Borghese family was the most influential, although popes during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries usually promoted their kinsmen, especially those who were clerics. Patronage was essential to clerical advancement. At the beginning of his ecclesiastical career, Jean Raymond de Boisgelin (1732–1804) sought the patronage of the Rohans, who were his family's traditional patrons. Louis Constantin de Rohan (1734–1803), bishop of Strasbourg, helped him to obtain his first position as grand vicar of the archbishop of Rouen in 1755. Boisgelin then went to the royal court, where he met the comtesse de Gramont and the prince de Beauvau, and through their patronage, he was named archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, an office which he held from 1770 until 1805.

Being appointed to the office of tax farmer general in eighteenth-century France was almost always the result of a recommendation by an individual with influence at court such as royal family members, royal favorites, ministers, and great nobles. Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle, the duchesse de Châteauroux (1717–1744), obtained a promise that the first vacancy of farmer general would be given to her client, Camuset, who finally received the office in 1749, five years after her death. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, the marquise de Pompadour (1721–1764), married a tax farmer general in 1741. She later became Louis XV's mistress and controlled most of the appointments to these financial offices until her death in 1764. Jean de Guillemain was named commander of the Paris city guard in 1703 through the patronage of a royal minister, the comte de Pontchartrain. In 1714 Guillemain became a defendant in a criminal trial before the judicial high court of the Parlement of Paris on charges of bribery and police brutality. Despite this, his son inherited his office in the same year through Pontchartrain's patronage. Patronage was essential to advancement within the government.

The distribution of patronage was an important rationale for the existence of princely courts, which served as meeting places for the nobility and the king. If an individual wanted patronage, he had to go where potential patrons gathered, and this was the court. The imperial court of the Habsburgs in Vienna, for instance, offered a range of patronage and advancement opportunities unavailable elsewhere in the empire. Courts were also centers for the consumption of elite culture, and thus vital to cultural production. Artists and intellectuals went to court hoping to secure employment and financial support in the form of commissions and patronage. They might be hired by a court noble whose hobby was building and decorating great houses, and who employed architects, mural and portrait painters, tapestry and furniture makers, sculptors, and musicians. Household service was a form of cultural patronage, and men of letters were employed in great households as secretaries, tutors, librarians, chaplains, readers, and almoners. Annual pensions providing financial support were the preferred form of cultural patronage, however, because they allowed the recipients to live independently.

At the English court of James I (ruled 1603–1625), famous art patrons included, besides the king himself, his oldest son Prince Henry, who died in 1612, the royal favorite, the duke of Buckingham, and the earls of Arundel, Salisbury, and Pembroke, who lavishly decorated great houses. Frederick II, king of Denmark and Norway (ruled 1559–1588), was known for his patronage of the astronomer Tycho Brahe, for whom he built a castle-laboratory on the island of Ven. Brahe was the son of the queen's mistress of the wardrobe, and Queen Sophia visited Ven several times. At Tycho's urging, she encouraged his friend, the historian Anders Sørensen Vedel, to gather together and publish a collection of old Danish ballads, which remain an important source of early Danish folk literature.

Artists seeking patronage usually approached a potential patron directly or through an intermediary. In 1474 it was rumored in Milan that the duke intended to have a chapel decorated at Pavia, and the duke's agent complained that every painter in Milan had asked him about it. In 1488 the artist Alvise Vivarini petitioned the doge to let him paint something for the Great Council Hall in Venice, as the Bellinis were doing, and in 1515 Titian made a similar request. Besides having a preference for a particular style, patrons chose an artist because of family connections or based on the advice of others, a low bid on a project, or the results of a formal competition. Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) went to work for Alessandro de' Medici because Alessandro was a distant relative of Vasari's guardian, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, while Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–1492) recommended the sculptor Guiliano da Maiano to Prince Alfonso of Calabria. The duke of Milan's agent, mentioned above, chose the artist who offered to do the work for 150 rather than 200 ducats. One of the most famous competitions was for the Baptistery doors in Florence, in which Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1378–1455) defeated Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446).

The uses of cultural patronage for self-advertisement and political propaganda were widely recognized, and patrons frequently suggested the theme, subject, or style of a work. Artists and men of letters often championed their patrons in print or in some other medium, and dedicated their work to them. After university teaching, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) sought a position at the Medici and Gonzaga courts. He finally secured one through the patronage of the young Cosimo de' Medici (1590–1621), whom he approached directly for the first time in 1605. Four years later Cosimo became duke and named Galileo court philosopher and mathematician. After Cosimo's death in 1621, Galileo went to the Roman court in search of a new patron, and secured the support of Prince Federico Cesi and Pope Urban VIII (1568–1644). His success, however, ended with his heresy trial in 1633. Galileo's father and older brother had been musicians at the Florentine court, and he had learned from them how to secure court patronage. He marketed his projects so that they were understandable and appealing, and emphasized that his success enhanced a patron's prestige. He flattered and complimented a patron, showed him deference, and graciously accepted his advice. At this time noble patronage of artistic and scientific projects was a popular hobby.

Italian humanists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tended to write civic propaganda rather than history because they were either employed in the household of a ruling prince, received a pension from him, or were employed in his government, which influenced what they had to say. Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444) and Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) are well-known examples. Unless they had financial means of their own, historians needed the support of patrons, and their continuing need for patronage influenced what they wrote. Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683) decided to encourage the writing of history that praised Louis XIV's government by asking the Parisian literary critic Jean Chapelain (1595–1674) to make recommendations for state-funded appointments as royal historians, and for a list of men of letters who should be awarded royal pensions for work glorifying Louis's reign. Colbert's list in 1664 contained fifty-eight names for a total of 77,500 livres. The next year there were sixty-five names for a total of 82,000 livres, and in 1666, seventy-two names for a total of 95,000 livres.

GOVERNMENT AND PATRONAGE

The traditional view of the patronage system emphasizes its destabilizing political effects, holding it responsible for much of the factionalism and conflict disrupting early modern courts and governments. Competition for patronage created strife and hostility, and increased corruption, favoritism, and nepotism in government. These deleterious effects caused political instability. A newer, revisionist view, however, insists upon the constructive effects of patronage because it provided early modern governments with a powerful weapon of manipulation and control. The king and his ministers used the personal bonds of loyalty created by patronage to ensure that their decisions were carried out. They created their own patron-client networks or mobilized existing networks, and used them to enforce their policies. They distributed patronage to political opponents and unruly nobles to encourage their obedience, and withheld it to punish disobedience, thus reducing political strife and conflict.

Philip II of Spain (ruled 1556–1598) was able to control the Spanish grandees because he had extensive patronage to distribute, including titles, lands, monopolies, annuities, and a multitude of posts in the army, government, and empire. During his reign, he gathered the flow of state patronage into his own hands, and carefully distributed it himself in contrast to his successor, Philip III (ruled 1598–1621), who used a favorite, the duke of Lerma, to distribute patronage to the nobility. Elizabeth I of England (ruled 1558–1603) had four recognized favorites, the earls of Leicester and Essex, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Sir Walter Raleigh, but she always distributed patronage herself, and she skillfully played off court and government factions so that she was always in control. By the eighteenth century, however, power had shifted from the English crown to the Parliament, so it became the battleground for patronage, which was used to control parliamentary elections. Patronage allowed the government and the opposition to influence who sat in Parliament, and thus to determine what Parliament said and did.

Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602–1661) on his deathbed advised the young Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715) to distribute patronage himself, so that the nobility would look to him for favors, a policy that would strengthen the government. Louis took his advice, and maintained close control over the distribution of patronage, demanding obedience from those who received it. He did not have favorites as a matter of principle, unlike his father, Louis XIII (ruled 1610–1643), whose celebrated ministerial favorite, Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), had ruled France with an iron fist. Richelieu's handpicked successor was Cardinal Mazarin, who was chief minister during Louis's minority. When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis vowed to rule by himself and did so. Both Richelieu and Mazarin had governed using clients whom they placed at the highest levels of royal government, which was permeated from top to bottom by patron-client ties and networks.

The careers of Henry Howard, earl of Northampton (1540–1614), and Honoré d'Albert, sieur de Luynes, demonstrate the constructive uses of political patronage. For decades Howard was a would-be client without a patron, unable to attend court or seek royal favor, frequently imprisoned for his support of Mary, Queen of Scots (ruled 1542–1587). This punitive treatment did not make him abandon her cause, however. His fortunes changed in the 1590s, after her death, when he became a client of Robert Devereux, earl of Essex (1566–1601), a favorite of Elizabeth I. Able to return to court, Howard was reconciled with the queen, although he remained a Catholic. In the last years of her reign, he became a close adviser of James VI of Scotland (ruled 1567–1625), who appreciated Howard's support of his mother. When James became king of England in 1603, he made Howard earl of Northampton, and in this capacity Howard became one of James's most important ministers. As a privy councillor, Howard was an active supporter of administrative reform, and he used patronage and his own extensive patron-client network to accomplish it. When he died in 1614, his clients controlled the distribution of most court patronage, and he had amassed a large personal fortune. Howard used patronage as a tool to pursue both personal profit and government reform.

Honoré d'Albert de Luynes was a client of the powerful governor of Languedoc, Henri de Montmorency-Damville, who appointed him governor of the royal fortress of Pont-Saint-Esprit in the 1570s. Luynes was ambitious, so he went to court in search of further advancement. He became a client of Henry III's brother, the duc d'Anjou. But his pursuit of court advancement cost him the patronage of Damville, who severed their ties and removed him as governor of Pont-Saint-Esprit. Luynes was reinstated by the king, however. Henry III regularly used the distribution of court patronage, especially by his favorites the ducs de Joyeuse and d'Epernon, to manipulate and control the French nobility. Henry III distrusted Damville, who was known as "the uncrowned king of the south," considering him an overmighty subject and a Protestant sympathizer. So, he reversed Damville's decision and reinstated Luynes, who was a staunch Catholic. Luynes promised to raise troops to drive Damville's Protestant governor from Pont-Saint-Esprit and did so. As a reward, he received the fortress governorship from the king. When the duc d'Anjou died, however, Damville removed Luynes from office again, and this time the king did not intervene. Although Luynes went to court in search of a new patron, he did not find one, and he received no more appointments. The king and Damville had used the bestowal of patronage to encourage obedience, and its removal to punish disobedience. Early modern governments used the selective distribution of patronage to enforce their policies and discipline unruly nobles. In this way, the patronage system helped to reduce strife and increase political stability.

See also Aristocracy and Gentry; Art: Artistic Patronage; Court and Courtiers; Feudalism; Officeholding.

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SHARON KETTERING