The Price of an Office: Venality, the Individual and the State in 19 th Century China Elisabeth Kaske This paper examines the sale of public offices in 19 th century China, its ideological and insti- tutional background and its functions for the state as supplier and the individual as purchaser. For the state, the sale of offices mainly functioned as an anti-deficit measure, whereas for the individual, it supplemented but did not replace the examinations system as a means by which to attain an appointment as a regular official. However, during the 19 th century the role of venality changed, when the sale of office patents became divorced from actual appointments and expectancy by itself offered alternative modes of employment. Venality of Office in Comparative Perspective The sale of offices in Late Imperial China was not just another form of cor- ruption, but part and parcel of the political and legal institutions of the em- pire. As early as in 1849, the Chinese Repository remarked that it was "one of the worst features in the present policy of the Chinese government." 1 In 1925, Pao Chao Hsieh expressed his surprise that "the purchase of office, popularly understood as a corrupt practice in the old Manchu Government, strangely enough had full legal sanction there." 2 However, what seemed strange and despicable to American missionaries and US educated Chinese students had in fact been a common phenomenon in Europe and its depend- encies during a historical era identified with absolutism. Though most ad- vanced in France under the Ancien Régime and long regarded as a "French addiction," it was also to be found in the Papal States, England, the Habs- burg Empire, Württemberg, Brandenburg-Preußen, and other early modern states. 3 1 The Chinese Repository XIII (1849), 207. 2 Hsieh 1925, 105. 3 Swart 1949; Parry 1953; Mousnier 1971; Malettke 1980; Bruce 1980. For the expression "French addiction" see: Doyle 1996, chap. 1. Elisabeth Kaske 278 In his 1949 dissertation, Koenraad Swart was the first European scholar to point out that "the universality of sale of offices indicates that this phe- nomenon was caused by factors which had a more general character than is usually assumed." 4 Wolfgang Reinhard, in a seminal paper published in 1974, emphasized that venality was a truly "universal historical phenome- non," especially if various related and transitional forms were taken into account. 5 European historians usually distinguish between venality of of- fices (Ämterkäuflichkeit, venalité des offices) in the narrow sense of the word, i.e. the legal and institutionalized sale of offices by the state, the semi- legal or illegal commerce of offices between private individuals (Ämterhan- del, commerce des offices), transitional forms between the former and the latter, and, finally, related forms such as the sale of peerage, brevet titles and academic degrees. The fact that a private commerce of offices could develop into the public and legalized sale of offices was seen by Reinhard as due to a "phase shift of various historical processes." It was a coincidence of: (1) a medieval notion of office inherited from Canon law, which saw an official function (officium) as inseparably linked to a benefice (beneficium) and in fact made the office into a private property of the office-holder that could be resold (per "resignatio in favorem tertii") or even bequeathed to a son; (2) the monetarization of the economy and increased financial needs of the state, especially due to the extension of wars and the use of mercenary troops; and (3) an underdeveloped money and capital market, in which state loans were in fact private loans to the ruler whose credit rating was rather questionable. In such circumstances, the sale of offices was a convenient means for the ruler to obtain money by taking out loans from his subjects which were se- cured by conferring the benefice of an office to the lender. In most cases, such a loan was highly advantageous for the state because it was the popu- lace who returned the interest by paying to the office-holder fees he was entitled to demand by virtue of the authority conferred to him by the state. 6 Only venality of offices in the narrow sense is dealt with in this essay. Starting from Reinhard’s comparative method three aspects of venality are 4 Swart 1949, 2. 5 Reinhard 1974, 289–292 (this paper was brought to my attention by Dr. Nicole Rein- hardt). 6 Ibid., 294–313, 319.