AHC: Chinese-style examination based civil service in Europe

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to give one or more major European countries (or religious hierarchies, if you like) a Chinese-style bureaucracy based on yearly entrance exams. Said exams to be, presumably, based on a canon of Christian classics (or Greek & Roman philosophical classics, or both, or whatever fits the POD and location within Europe). Have at it!
 
Depending of course, on what time this actually happens, I can see this being more the Church's bit than something that happens in any one kingdom or another. China developed this because it has a long history of centralized, top-down rule. Medieval Europe was pretty much the opposite of that. Individual lords and nobles could in many cases be significantly more important than the king of an entire "country" (term used rather loosely here) depending on the circumstances. These are circumstances that are more favorable to the development of pretty much what happened IOTL: networks of feudalistic patronage, ruling an efficient state was less the issue than making sure relations with all the important families and people were in order.

The Church is pretty much the closest thing that medieval Europe had to a central institution, and even that didn't always wind up working out perfectly (the clergy in Spain, for example, would obviously be concerned with different issues than the Papacy in Rome), but that's pretty much the best that can be done. And to some extent, the Church had things like this when it came to the rigorous monastic orders, many of which expected extreme commitments from their devotees in order to be allowed to join.
 
That makes sense. I wonder what the Catholic Classics might be - the Vulgate of St. Jerome, City of God, the Summa Theologica, the Catechism of the Council of Trent and...?
 
If you want something like this NOT conectes to the Church, it has to start in Roman times. I think something like this could have been established by the firt Roman emperors or, at laest, by the late ones, when the emperor's rule became more absolutist. It might be seen as a way of solving the IIIrd century crises, and making sure the emperor's orders will be respected, for which an efficient bureocracy might prove useful.
 
If you want something like this NOT conectes to the Church, it has to start in Roman times. I think something like this could have been established by the firt Roman emperors or, at laest, by the late ones, when the emperor's rule became more absolutist. It might be seen as a way of solving the IIIrd century crises, and making sure the emperor's orders will be respected, for which an efficient bureocracy might prove useful.

An efficient bureaucracy could certainly be a thing used by an ambitious emperor to create a cadre of people loyal to the emperor, and only the emperor as was done later on in European history in the early modern period. The only issue is that it would be expensive, and for the people who would be threatened by it, quite unpopular, unpopular to the point where people start dying.
 
But it is very far from impossible. In the sixteenth century, that kind of project was undertaken by ambitious humanists, people who believed that if you wanted good government, you had to educate good governors. Namely, this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Governor

http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/gov/gov1.htm

In reality, the influence of the landed classes undercut such efforts, but imagine a scenario where one or more of the early modern centralised states were a bit more successful. You could see a humanistically trained civil service displace rather than compete with the nobility in government. Presumably rather sooner than later they would face a huge revolt, or a catastrophic end. Perhaps it could happen in a smaller country, making it a kind of anti-Prussia.
 
Britain had competative exams for entry into the Foreign Office (and Colonial Office) from 1861.
It should be possible to move this back at least 50 years (as the British Empire expanded and diplomats become professional).

I think the best bets for an earlier system would be:

1) The Vatican itself. Given that it sent representatives to all Catholic countries an examination system for entry into Vatican Service is possible.

2) The HRE. If the Emporer sent representatives to each country within the HRE this could lead to the establishment of a civil service.
 

katchen

Banned
If the Golden Horde had brought Chinese style administration to Russia, the Grand Dukes of Muscovy would have copied it and quite likely brought examinations in the classics into the Russian Orthodox Church too in order that people could seek admission to the streltsy class.
 
If the Golden Horde had brought Chinese style administration to Russia, the Grand Dukes of Muscovy would have copied it and quite likely brought examinations in the classics into the Russian Orthodox Church too in order that people could seek admission to the streltsy class.

But the Mongols in Russia (as well as their descendants the Golden Horde) never showed much interest in Russia. China was of far greater importance to them. And they did just fine playing the various Russian states off against each other, and using local authorities to enforce their rule. Direct rule in Russia as opposed to merely extracting tribute never seemed to be the purpose of the Tatars (I use the general term that is technically incorrect because it's far less annoying than always saying Mongols or Golden Horde). The Golden Horde was an entity unto itself: a Muslim entity that looked to the east while the Russian states looked to Christianity and the West. It isn't to say that Islam in itself was the nail in the coffin, but it more demonstrated that the Golden Horde never really had an interest in working itself into the Russian polity as a permanent ruling force. If they were, the khans would have converted to Orthodoxy and intermarried amidst the Russian nobility.

So in short, I suppose my issue is the imposition of a civil service in Russia contradicts what the Mongols wanted out of Russia (i.e. tribute).
 
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