Amateurism. Government administration in the era 1350-1600 was marked by amateurism. A large portion of government officials had no formal training for their positions. If they were nobles, it was expected that they were qualified by birth to undertake the business of government without any professional training or experience. It was marked also by clericalism; the word clerk came from the fact that the medieval clerks were clerics. Since they could read and write and calculate, clergymen often became officials, although that practice declined dramatically after 1517 in those lands that became Protestant. A third feature of administration was its small size. The number of officials and bureaucrats was amazingly small, even taking into consideration the smaller size of states and the population in that era. Around 1500 the French monarchy, which had the largest bureaucracy, had eight thousand to twelve...