n.

1. The support or encouragement of a patron, as for an institution or cause.
2. Support or encouragement proffered in a condescending manner: Our little establishment has finally been deemed worthy of the bank's patronage.
3. The trade given to a commercial establishment by its customers: Shopkeepers thanked Christmas shoppers for their patronage.
4. Customers or patrons considered as a group; clientele: The grand old hotel has a loyal but demanding patronage.
5. 1. The power to distribute or appoint people to governmental or political positions.
   2. The act of distributing or appointing people to such positions.
   3. The positions so distributed or filled.
6. The right to grant an ecclesiastical benefice to a member of the clergy.

noun

1. Aid or support given by a patron: aegis, auspice (often used in plural), backing, patronization, sponsorship. See help/harm/harmless.
2. The commercial transactions of customers with a supplier: business, custom, trade, traffic. See transactions.
3. Customers or patrons collectively: clientele. See transactions.
4. The political appointments or jobs that are at the disposal of those in power: spoil (used in plural). Slang pork. See politics.

n

Definition: business done at an establishment
Antonyms: competition

n

Definition: condescension
Antonyms: humility, modesty

n

Definition: support of a cause
Antonyms: antagonism, detraction, opposition

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Patronage is an element of civilian and military politics. Since the world descended into the age of ideologies it has been less easy to discern, but a key task of government remains the ability to reward supporters, preferably at the expense of opponents, but at all times to increase the number of persons beholden to it. This is patronage, and it does not matter whether the source of legitimacy is God, birth, limited franchise, or universal right democratic elections; any government that fails to nurture its power base will not last. Lest the first be considered a blasphemous flippancy, for much of world history sacrifices to placate the gods and the interpretation of divine will through omens accompanied all important human undertakings, and for most of that time there were few activities as important as war.

Thus from earliest times, patronage in the broadest sense of the powerful seeking to bind to them other sources of power has lubricated the interface between governments and armed forces. Until quite recently, there was no dichotomy and rulers naturally led their armies and rose or fell in accordance with their performance. A dynasty might be founded by a great warrior, but the reason why the hereditary principle was adopted by most cultures was to avoid the costs and disruptions of battles over the succession. Alexander's successors' wars are an example of the generally dire alternative. Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism only provided an alternative for small, homogenous polities, and neither survived for long once their boundaries spread. It was precisely because the hereditary principle required the tacit suspension of individual ambition by other powerful individuals that patronage became so important. A hereditary ruler who failed to honour and reward this forbearance would soon find this early form of social compact crumbling and civil war would ensue. Feudalism evolved to make clear the rules of the game, and it was immensely powerful, best illustrated in the West when the Emperor Henry IV was obliged to do homage to Pope Innocent III at Canossa because his authority came from a greater lord than Henry. Thus feudal service was a very elaborate but fundamentally pragmatic system of patronage.

‘Lop-sided friendship’, which is how patronage is more narrowly defined, dominated the period from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries, when the feudal system no longer conveyed legitimacy and before contract became formalized as the basis for service and reward. Social advancement as a result of preferment by the powerful represents the transitional stage between the two, lacking the spiritual as well as temporal power of the former, but retaining the element of an intimate interpersonal bond that imposed obligations on both parties. Limited governments disposed of limited patronage, but it was most clearly shown in the armed forces which were, after all, practically the only area where government spending was both recognized as necessary and of paramount importance to those involved and to the social and economic systems they defended. (For a discussion of the theory that war has been the key means whereby government writ and exactions have steadily extended see political economy.)

It was as good a system as any other for the simple reason that it was not in the interest of a patron to waste his authority on advancing the career of an incompetent. The hereditary nobility still enjoyed what we now call the ‘inside track’, but if they were wise they delegated operational matters to others. One reason why the hereditary principle survived as long as it did was that the aristocracy by blood constantly co-opted able commoners like Marlborough to strengthen its ranks. That people are still made peers or awarded membership of orders of chivalry, and are often very anxious to be so distinguished, is a reminder of how strong that supposedly pre-modern system of patronage remains. The reason for this is that it worked so well. The Royal Navy that enabled a small island off the north-west coast of Europe to dominate half the world was built on patronage, with the elements and the enemy quickly weeding out the unsuitable.

It should not be supposed that patronage was anti-democratic; on the contrary, so-called Jacksonian democracy in the USA was in fact a vast system of patronage, the saying ‘to the victor the spoils’ in fact being coined in 1860 to describe Pres Andrew Jackson's insistence that every public office should be filled by either a supporter or someone for whom a supporter wanted to do a favour. Admission to West Point was by patronage, and without patronage Sherman would have lived in obscurity. For that matter, it was the deadlock between far more powerful members of his own party that permitted the almost unknown Lincoln to be elected, and his conduct of the war effort was seriously compromised by the need to find places in his cabinet for his patrons.

If patronage has been a means of linking military to political leaders, it has also played its part within armies, although the term is often assigned an opprobrium that it does not always deserve. Many of the personal bonds linking officers reflect a common experience in services or individual units, military academies, staff colleges, or on specific operations. These are often crucial in determining appointments and promotions, and most armies have contained interest groups like the Bonapartist generals who dominated the early years of the French army of the Second Empire, the Wolseley ring which proved so influential in the late Victorian army, or the ‘Ginger group’ which focused on the reforming FM Sir Nigel Bagnall in the 1980s and gained its punning title from his red hair. Patrons do not usually support the advancement of incompetent clients, although close personal regard may blur the clarity of their vision. Haig retained his intelligence officer, Brig Gen John Charteris (who had served with him since he was a captain) longer than was wise. Haig himself had enjoyed the patronage of French, on whose staff he had served, which made the break between them in December 1915 all the more painful. As armies strive to be more transparently meritocratic, so they will continued to refine reporting systems designed to eliminate patronage. But the fact remains that when a difficult military job has to be done, both politicians and senior officers will tend to favour the man they know above one they don't.

— Richard Holmes

English ‘patron’ directly follows Latin patronus in the meaning ‘protector, defender’. In the medieval church it also acquired the meaning of ‘one who has the right to nominate a clergyman to occupy a parish’. These two senses are nicely blended in the concept of political patronage. In Victorian and Edwardian Britain, the civil service office of Patronage Secretary to the Treasury was charged with distributing favours to government supporters in return for votes. The patronage office still exists in the British Civil Service; its role is to check that political honours are not given to inappropriate people, as in the period from 1916 to 1922 when Lloyd George sold them. This function has not been proposed for (re)privatization since 1979.

In the United States, political patronage followed very similar lines, hence the progressive concern with civil service reform. However, some federal posts both high and low (ambassadorships, postmasterships) are still openly the subject of patronage. See also machine.

patronage, the provision of financial or other material assistance to a writer by a wealthy person or public institution, in return for entertainment, prestige, or homage. Dr Johnson defined a patron as ‘a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery’. The system of patronage has had several varieties, from the accommodation of a poet in a royal household to the payment of a single fee for a flattering dedication. Its importance declined sharply in the 18th century with the appearance of a publishing market, but patronage continues in some modern forms such as business sponsorship of dramatic performances.

Until the late 18th c., it was virtually impossible for French writers to live on their literary earnings. Even Diderot, often regarded as one of the first professional writers, eked out his income from the Encyclopédie with gifts from Catherine the Great. Publishers paid badly, if at all. The theatre, where the richest pickings were to be had, rarely afforded a regular means of support. Many writers did not need payment for their work, having either unearned income or another profession; during the ancien régime such people tended to disdain publishers, literary earnings, and the ‘hacks’ who depended on them. But not all were so fortunate; for many, patronage (le mécénat) was an indispensable element of literary life.

Much of it came from rich and powerful individuals or families, in particular from the courts of monarchs, princes, and nobles, not only in France but abroad. In the High Middle Ages, for instance, Eleanor of Aquitaine was a renowned protector of the arts, and in the 15th c. the Burgundian court was an outstanding artistic centre. The French Valois kings, particularly François I^er, pursued a policy of cultural prestige which boded well for writers and artists, and in the following century Louis XIV followed the same path. His protégé Racine's career is a striking example of how royal patronage could enrich a writer. Even under Louis, however, there were many mécènes apart from the king, notably such great princes as Condé. The 17th and particularly the 18th c. saw the rise of financiers and tax-farmers such as Helvétius, d'Épinay, and La Popelinière as patrons of literature.

There was a tendency in the 17th and 18th c. for patronage to become more impersonal and official. Under Colbert's direction, and with Chapelain's guidance, pensions were distributed to many writers who were thought capable of enhancing the prestige of the monarchy. As the press developed, the government channelled pensions to writers through such journals as the Mercure de France or the Journal des savants, which had to make the payments from their profits. The payment of state pensions was notoriously irregular, depending on the royal finances, but it was more reliable than the one-off gifts in cash or in kind which from the earliest times had been the basic form of patronage. More reliable still were the innumerable sinecures or near-sinecures with which the crown and other patrons rewarded or encouraged devoted writers. The most important were church livings of various kinds; for many of these it was not necessary to have taken orders—the tonsure was enough. Some writers were active churchmen, but others contented themselves with receiving the salary; writers who were rewarded in this way ranged from Machaut in the 14th c. to Ronsard in the 16th, Racine in the 17th, and Bernis (a particularly striking example) in the 18th.

In many cases, as well as receiving gifts or a salary, the writer was the ‘domestique’ (sometimes the secretary or librarian or bursar) of the patron, living in his or her house and eating at his or her table; La Fontaine received help of this kind from Madame de la Sablière. In such cases, writer and patron might live in close proximity, and relations between them could be close and friendly. Medieval manuscripts sometimes show the writer kneeling humbly and offering a work to a patron, but they also often speak of collaboration between the two, the writer giving shape to the patron's ideas [see Authorship]. In the 17th c. Segrais, secretary to the duchesse de Montpensier, signed the Nouvelles françaises in which his patron had a large part. At the opposite extreme, Diderot's Neveu de Rameau presents an unforgettable, if biased, picture of the fawning yet insolent behaviour of writers at the table of a tax-farmer.

Many works were directly addressed from author to patron. Marot, for instance, wrote a joking verse epistle to François I^er requesting money after being robbed. More normally, the work was preceded by a dedication in verse or prose; in the latter case it was often a separate dedicatory epistle. This can be regarded as a minor literary genre in its own right, an exercise in the rhetoric of praise. Many examples are fulsome to the point of absurdity, the most famous case being the eulogy of the financier Montoron at the head of Corneille's Cinna. Others made a point of praising more subtly and wittily, while yet others (e.g. Scarron) made mock of the whole procedure. The dedicatory epistle appears to have lost favour in the 18th c., though it is interesting to note that Voltaire dedicated Mahomet to Pope Benedict XIV, who was certainly not his patron.

Private patronage declined in importance as the book-buying public grew in the 19th c. It did not by any means disappear, however, and wealthy individuals supported the work of many avant-garde writers and artists, including the Surrealists. Much more important in recent times is public patronage, whether from industrial companies or from the state. During the Revolutionary period and the Second Empire, for instance, government had given financial encouragement to the arts, provided they supported the regime. The appointment of Malraux as minister of culture in 1959 led to an unprecedented volume of state support for all the arts, including literature. This was carried a stage further, with a different political slant and a different definition of culture, by Jack Lang, minister of culture under François Mitterrand. In 1992 Marc Fumaroli provoked vehement debates with his L'État culturel, a vitriolic attack on the effects of state patronage.

[Peter France]

Bibliography

• J. Lough, Writer and Public in France (1978)

The awarding of government jobs, appointments, and other considerations on the basis of political ties or favors is known as patronage—that is, a patron or official sponsor arranged it. During the first century of the federal government, almost all nonelected posts went by patronage to elected officials' supporters and fellow party members. After each election, the patronage jobholders from the losing party found themselves out of work.

Initially, there were few Presidential appointments, and President George Washington named his revolutionary war colleagues to these posts. Thomas Jefferson used appointments to build up the new state parties. “No duty the President had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place,” he observed.

Andrew Jackson established the principle of “rotation in office,” by which he meant that when a new party took over the White House, the President would appoint new officeholders in the bureaucracy, not just the cabinet. These appointments were designed to build up the Democratic party that Jackson had created. Senator William Marcy of New York, in a speech delivered to the Senate in January 1832, observed that the Jacksonians “see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.” (Patronage was also called the “spoils system.”) Postal routes and postmasterships were awarded to local politicians in Jackson's party. The collectors of the ports, collectors of fees, Indian agents, and other federal officials were usually well connected to state parties or Jackson's congressional supporters.

Many patronage appointees, however, were poorly qualified for their jobs. Election turnovers disrupted agency operations and removed experienced staff. Office seekers besieged members of Congress and new Presidents, demanding high government jobs in return for their party service. After a disappointed job seeker shot and killed President James Garfield in 1881, Congress enacted the first civil service law in 1883. It required the executive branch to assign most jobs according to merit rather than political influence. To obtain a civil service position, an applicant must take a qualifying examination or demonstrate sufficient professional training and experience. Once appointed, civil servants cannot be fired for political reasons. The Office of Personnel Management now enforces all rules relating to civil service hiring.

Presidents still used patronage, however, to increase their influence with members of Congress and political party leaders. Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley used patronage to pass tariffs, and McKinley used it to assure Senate approval of the Treaty of Paris. William Howard Taft denied patronage to members of his party who refused to support his legislative program, which infuriated them and led to a split within the Republican party.

No President can afford to ignore the demands of his party. Postmaster General Albert Burleson advised President Woodrow Wilson that “these little offices mean a great deal to the Senators and Representatives in Congress…. If they are turned down, they will hate you and will not vote for anything you want.” Franklin Roosevelt used patronage to win support for crucial military preparedness legislation prior to the attack at Pearl Harbor.

President Dwight Eisenhower acted as if he were above the pettiness of party politics, but actually he was very much involved. He came out of a cabinet meeting one day and wrote in his diary, “Everything seems to have been patronage this morning.” Lyndon Johnson used patronage to cement a relationship with the opposition party. By taking care of the patronage requests made by Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen, Johnson won crucial Republican votes for his Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Assigning jobs on Capitol Hill

Even after establishing a civil service system for the executive branch, Congress continued to assign most of its own jobs according to patronage. At first this was because Congress met for only half the year and hired a small staff for only those months. Only a few committees, such as Finance, Ways and Means, Printing, and Claims, which received correspondence and other documents even after Congress had adjourned, were authorized to employ a year-round staff. Members of the House and Senate appointed their own office staffs. Sometimes members appointed their wives, children, and other relatives as their secretaries, messengers, or committee clerks. New ethics laws eventually outlawed nepotism, but members continued to appoint their campaign supporters to posts in their own offices and committees and to other jobs around the Capitol. Both parties had patronage committees to assign clerks, elevator operators, and Capitol police to their members for patronage appointments.

Patronage began to decline after World War II, as Congress began to meet on a year-round basis and as the growth in members' personal staffs relieved the pressure of making patronage appointments elsewhere. But outside of members' own offices (where staffs generally reflect the member's political leaning), the trend in the general operations of Congress has continued toward a permanent, professional, and nonpartisan staff.

See also Appointment power

Sources

• Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (New York: Meridian, 1956)

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.

Bibliography

Asch, Ronald G., and Adolf M. Birke, eds. Princes, Patronage, and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c. 1450–1650. Oxford and New York, 1991.

Biagioli, Mario. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago, 1992.

Burke, Peter. The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. Princeton, 1986.

Dent, Julian. "The Role of Clientèles." In French Government and Society, 1500–1850: Essays in Memory of Alfred Cobban. Edited by J. F. Bosher. London, 1973.

Durand, Yves, ed. Hommage à Roland Mousnier: Clientèles et fidélités en Europe a l'époque moderne. Paris, 1981.

Elliott, J. H., and L. W. B. Brockliss, eds. The World of the Favourite. New Haven, 1999.

Greengrass, Mark. "Noble Affinities in Early Modern France: The Case of Henry I de Montmorency, Constable of France." European History Quarterly 16 (1986): 275–311.

Guy, John, ed. The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1995.

Haskell, Francis. Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque. Rev. ed. New Haven, 1980.

Kent, F. W., and Patricia Simons, eds. Patronage, Art and Society in Renaissance Italy. Oxford and New York, 1987.

Kettering, Sharon. Patronage in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France. Aldershot, U.K., and Burlington, Vt., 2002.

——. Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France. New York, 1986.

Le Roux, Nicolas. Le faveur du Roi: Mignons et courtesans au temps des derniers Valois. Paris, 2001.

Major, J. Russell. "'Bastard Feudalism' and the Kiss: Changing Social Mores in Late Medieval and Early Modern France." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17, no. 3 (1987): 509–535.

——. "The Crown and the Aristocracy in Renaissance France." American Historical Review 69 (1964): 631–646.

Mettam, Roger. Power and Faction in Louis XIV's France. Oxford and New York, 1988.

Mousnier, Roland. The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598–1789. Translated by Brian Pearce. 2 vols. Chicago, 1979 and 1984.

Namier, Sir Lewis. The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III. 2nd ed. London, 1961.

Peck, Linda Levy. Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England. Boston, 1990.

——. Northampton: Patronage and Policy at the Court of James I. London, 1982.

Ranum, Orest. Artisans of Glory: Writers and Historical Thought in Seventeenth-Century France. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1980.

——. Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII: A Study of the Secretaries of State and Superintendents of Finance in the Ministry of Richelieu, 1635–1642. Oxford, 1963.

—SHARON KETTERING

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

The practice or custom observed by a political official of filling government positions with qualified employees of his or her own choosing.

When the candidate of a political party wins an election, the newly elected official has the right to appoint a certain numbers of persons to jobs in the government. This is the essence of the patronage system, also known as the spoils system ("To the victor go the spoils"): appointing persons to government positions on the basis of political support and work rather than on merit, as measured by objective criteria. Though the patronage system exists at all levels of U.S. government, the number of positions that are available through patronage has decreased dramatically since the 1880s.

The patronage system thrived in the U.S. federal government until 1883. In 1820 Congress limited federal administrators to four-year terms, leading to constant turnover. By the 1860s and the Civil War, patronage had led to widespread inefficiency and political corruption. Where patronage had once been confined to the cabinet, department heads, and foreign ambassadorships, by the 1860s low-level government positions were subject to patronage. The loss of a presidential election by a political party signaled wholesale turnover in the federal government. When President Benjamin Harrison took office in 1889, 31,000 federal postmaster positions changed hands.

The assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by a disgruntled office seeker who did not receive a political appointment spurred Congress to pass the Civil Service Act, or Pendleton Act of 1883 (5 U.S.C.A. § 1101 et seq.). The act, which at the time only applied to 10 percent of the federal workforce, created a Civil Service Commission and advocated a merit system for the selection of government employees. By 1980, 90 percent of federal positions had become part of the civil service system. In addition, the passage in 1939 of the Hatch Act (53 Stat. 1147) curtailed or restricted most partisan political activities of federal employees.

State and local governments have employed large patronage systems. Big-city political machines in places such as New York, Boston, and Chicago thrived in the late nineteenth century. A patronage system not only rewards political supporters for past support, it also encourages future support, because persons who have a patronage job try to retain it by campaigning for the party at the next election.

Large-scale patronage systems declined steadily during the twentieth century. During the Progressive Era (1900-1920), "good government" reformers overthrew political machines and installed civil service systems. Chicago, under Mayor Richard J. Daley, remained the last bastion of patronage, existing in its purest form until the late 1970s.

Patronage has its defenders. It is a way to maintain a strong political organization by offering campaign workers rewards. More importantly, patronage puts people into government who agree with the political agenda of the victor. Cooperation, loyalty, and trust flow from this arrangement. Finally, patronage guarantees some turnover, bringing new people and new ideas into the system.

Opponents have long agreed that patronage is acceptable at the highest levels of government. Presidents, governors, and mayors are entitled to select their cabinet and department heads. However, history indicates that patronage systems extending far down the organizational chain are susceptible to inefficiency and corruption.

Congress took another look at patronage issues in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (92 Stat. 1121-1131, 5 U.S.C.A. 1201-1209). Concerned that federal bureaucrats were too independent and unresponsive to elected officials, the act replaced the Civil Service Commission with the Office of Personnel Management, under closer control of the president. The act also created the Senior Executive Service, which gives the president greater discretion in reassigning top officials to departments and agencies.

See: Bureaucracy; Civil Service; Tammany Hall.

(pay-truh-nij, pat-ruh-nij)

The power of a government official or leader to make appointments and offer favors. Once in office, a politician can use patronage to build a loyal following. Though practiced at all levels of government, patronage is most often associated with the machine politics of big cities. (See spoils system.)

IN BRIEF: n. - The business given to a commercial establishment by its customers; (politics) granting favors or giving contracts or making appointments to office in return for political support.

Get the confidence of the public and you will have no difficulty in getting their patronage — H. Gordon Selfridge

Quotes:

"If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay -- in solid cash -- the tribute which philistinism owes to culture, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy." - Aldous Huxley

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it." - Samuel Johnson

"Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery." - Samuel Johnson

"If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates." - Ezra Pound

"I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples." - John Updike

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - patronat, beskyttelse, protektion

Nederlands (Dutch)
patronaat, beschermheerschap, begunstiging, klandizie, neerbuigende houding, patronaatsrecht, macht om politieke benoemingen te maken

Français (French)
n. - patronage, (Pol) droit de présentation, (GB, Relig) droit de disposer d'un bénéfice (ecclésiastique), (Comm) pratique (arch)

Deutsch (German)
n. - Schirmherrschaft, Kundschaft, Gönnerhaftigkeit, Recht der Ämterbesetzung

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πατρονάρισμα, προστασία, προστατευτικό ύφος, πελατεία

Italiano (Italian)
favore, patrocinio

Português (Portuguese)
n. - patrocínio (m), patronato (m), clientela (f)

Русский (Russian)
покровительство, право назначения на должность

Español (Spanish)
n. - patrocinio, patronazgo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kundkrets, beskydd, stöd, nedlåtenhet

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
赞助, 任免权, 光顾

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 贊助, 任免權, 光顧

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 보호, 단골, 목사추천권

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 後援, ひいき, 愛顧, 恩着せがましい態度, 顧客, 任命権

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) رعايه, مناصرة, زبانه, عماله تجاريه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮פטרונות, חסות, תמיכה, אדנות, חוג לקוחות, זכות מינוי‬

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