Vertical Ties through Time

Professor Kettering concludes her article with an appeal that the patronage system be studied and for itself. Her request should be granted. Few topics are as important in late medieval and early modern French history. There are, I would argue, two tendencies in politicalsocial history: the first is the tendency for those with similar problems to unite to obtain their objectives. In an age of poor transportation and communication such horizontal ties are likely to be local or at the most regional. Thus we have peasant revolts in Provence, the Southwest, and Normandy, but not simultaneously in the whole of France. The second is the vertical tendency for an individual or group of individuals in power to bind lesser people to their cause. A king, a president, a dictator, is but one man. To govern he must develop vertical ties, whether they are achieved by the lord-vassal relationship, the patron-client relationship, or large, loyal bureaucracies and armies. In a similar manner the great noble had to develop vertical ties if he was to play a prominent role in the kingdom, for he too was but one man. Kettering has given us the best book' and many fine articles on patronage in France. No one is in a better position to argue for the importance of the practice or to try to define the terms that have been used in explaining how it worked. Words such as patron, client, maitre, fidele, protecteur, creature, and affinity have been used in various ways to describe relationships. To these terms pension and its derivatives should be added. They were used in the Middle Ages and have survived to mod

European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Medieval and Early Modern Justice

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