Estates of the realm were the broad divisions of a hierarchically conceived society, usually distinguishing
nobility,
clergy, and
commoners recognized in the
Middle Ages
and in Early Modern Europe. While various realms inverted the order of
the first two, commoners were universally tertiary, and often further
divided into
burghers (also known as
bourgeoisie) and
peasants;
in some regions, there also was a population outside the estates. An
estate was usually inherited and based on occupation, similar to a
caste.
Legislative bodies or advisory bodies to a
monarch
were traditionally grouped along lines of these estates, with the
monarch above all three estates. Meetings of the estates of the realm
became early legislative and judicial
parliaments (see The States). Monarchs often sought to legitimize their power by requiring oaths of fealty from the estates.
Estates in the Kingdom of France
Main article:
Ancien Régime in France France under the
Ancien Régime (before the
French Revolution) divided society into three estates: the
First Estate (
clergy); the
Second Estate (
nobility); and the
Third Estate (
commoners). The king was considered part of no estate.
The First Estate (Fr.
premier état) was the
clergy.
First Estate
The
First Estate comprised the entire clergy, traditionally divided into
"higher" and "lower" clergy. Although there was no formal demarcation
between the two categories, the upper clergy were, effectively, clerical
nobility, from the families of the Second Estate. In the time of Louis
XVI, every bishop in France was a nobleman, a situation that had not
existed before the 18th century.[1] At the other extreme, the "lower
clergy" ( about equally divided between parish priests and monks and
nuns) constituted about 90 percent of the First Estate, which in 1789
numbered around 130,000 (about 0.5% of the population).
Second Estate
The Second Estate (Fr.
deuxieme état) was the
French nobility and (technically, though not in common use)
royalty, other than the
monarch himself who, stood outside of the system of estates.
The Second Estate is traditionally divided into
"noblesse de robe" ("nobility of the robe"), the magisterial class that administered royal justice and civil government, and
"noblesse d'épée" ("nobility of the sword").
The Second Estate constituted approximately 1.5% of France's population.
[citation needed] Under the
ancien régime, the Second Estate were exempt from the
corvée royale (forced labour on the roads) and from most other forms of taxation such as the
gabelle (salt tax) and most important, the
taille (the oldest form of direct taxation). This exemption from paying taxes led to their reluctance to reform.
Third Estate
The Third Estate was the generality (or the statement) of people which were not part of the other estates.
The
Third Estate comprised all those not members of the above and can be
divided into two groups, urban and rural. The urban included the
bourgeoisie
8% of France's population, as well as wage-laborers (such as
craftsmen). The rural includes the peasantry, or the farming class
(about 90% of the population). The Third Estate includes some of what
would now be considered
middle class—e.g.,
the budding town bourgeoisie. What united the Third Estate is that most
had little or no wealth and yet were forced to pay disproportionately
high taxes to the other Estates.
The French Estates General
See main articles French Estates General, Estates General of 1789
The
first Estates General (not to be confused with a "class of citizen")
was actually a general citizen assembly that was called by
Philip IV in 1302.
In
the period leading up to the Estates General of 1789, France was in the
grip of an unmanageable public debt and terrible inflation and food
scarcity. This led to widespread popular discontent and produced a group
of third estate representatives pressing a comparatively radical set of
reforms - much of it in alignment with the goals of finance minister
Jacques Necker but very much against the wishes of
Louis XVI's
court and many of the hereditary nobles forming the second estate.
Louis sought to dissolve the estates general after they refused to
accept his agenda, but the third estate held out for their right to
representation. The lower clergy (and some nobles and upper clergy)
eventually sided with the third estate, and the king was forced to
yield. The States-General was reconstituted first as the
National Assembly (June 17, 1789) and then as the
National Constituent Assembly (July 9, 1789), a unitary body composed of the former representatives of the three estates.
Britain
England
The
canonical three estates of France were never more than theoretically
applied in England, where they never had the force of law, facilitating
the climb from a low estate to a high position in the king's service and
a noble title. Huizinga detected the common conception of divine
institution that linked the idea of estates:
There
are, first of all, the estates of the realm, but there are also the
trades, the state of matrimony and that of virginity, the state of sin.
At court there are the 'four estates of the body and mouth':
bread-masters, cup-bearers, carvers, and cooks. In the Church there are
sacerdotal orders and monastic orders. Finally there are the different
orders of chivalry.
Scotland
The members of the parliament of
Scotland were collectively referred to as the
Three Estates (Older Scots: Thre Estaitis), also known as the community of the realm, and until 1690 composed of:
The First Estate was overthrown during the
Glorious Revolution and the accession of
William II.
[1] The Second Estate was then split into two to retain the division into three.
From the 16th century, the
second estate was reorganised by the selection of Shire Commissioners: this has been argued to have created a
fourth estate. During the 17th century, after the
Union of the Crowns, a
fifth estate of royal office holders (see
Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland)
has been identified as well. These latter identifications remain highly
controversial among parliamentary historians. Regardless, the term used
for the assembled members continued to be 'the Three Estates'.
A
Shire Commissioner was the closest equivalent of the
English office of
Member of Parliament, namely a
commoner or member of the lower nobility. Because the parliament of Scotland was unicameral, all members sat in the same
chamber, as opposed to the separate English
House of Lords and
House of Commons.
The Parliament also had
University constituencies (see Ancient universities of Scotland). The system was also adopted by the
Parliament of England when
James VI
ascended to the English throne. It was believed that the universities
were affected by the decisions of Parliament and ought therefore to have
representation in it. This continued in the
Parliament of Great Britain after
1707 and the
Parliament of the United Kingdom until 1950.
In Sweden and Finland
The Estates in
Sweden (including
Finland) and later also the
Finland were the two higher estates
nobility,
clergy and the two lower estates
burghers
and land-owning peasants. Each were free men, and had specific rights
and responsibilities, and the right to send representatives to the
governing assembly, the
Riksdag of the Estates in Sweden and
Diet of Finland
(after being conquered by Russia in 1809), respectively. Also, there
was a population outside the estates; unlike in other areas, people had
no "default" estate, and were not peasants unless they came from a
land-owner's family. A summary of this division is:
- Nobility (see Finnish nobility and Swedish nobility)
was exempt from tax, had an inherited rank and the right to keep a
fief, and had a tradition of military service and government. Nobility
was established in 1279 with the Swedish king granted tax-free status (frälse)
to peasants who could equip a cavalryman (or be one themselves) in the
king's army. Initially, exemption from tax was not inherited, but it
became hereditary in 1544. Following Axel Oxenstierna's
reform, government positions were open only to nobles. However, the
nobility still owned only their own property, not the peasants or their
land as in much of Europe. Heads of the noble houses were hereditary members of the assembly of nobles. The Nobility is divided into titled nobility (counts and barons) and lower nobility. Until the 18th century the lower nobility was in turn was divided into Knights and Esquires
such that each of the three classes would first vote internally, giving
one vote per class in the assembly. This resulted in great political
influence for the higher nobility.
- Clergy, or priests, were exempt from tax, and collected tithes for the church. After the Reformation,
the church became Lutheran. In later centuries, the estate included
teachers of universities and certain state schools. The estate was
governed by the state church which consecrated its ministers and
appointed them to positions with a vote in choosing diet
representatives.
- Burghers are city-dwellers, tradesmen and craftsmen. Trade was allowed only in the cities when the mercantilistic
ideology had got the upper hand, and the burghers had the exclusive
right to conduct commerce. Entry to this Estate is controlled by the
autonomy of the towns themselves. Peasants were allowed to sell their
produce within the city limits, but any further trade, particularly
foreign trade, was allowed only for burghers. In order for a settlement
to become a city, a royal charter granting market right was required,
and foreign trade required royally chartered staple port
rights. After the annexation of Finland into Imperial Russia in 1809,
mill-owners and other proto-industrialists would gradually be included
in this estate.
- Peasants are land-owners of land-taxed farms
and their families, which represented the majority in medieval times.
Since most of the population were independent farmer families until 19th
century, not serfs nor villeins, there is a remarkable difference in
tradition compared to other European countries. Entry was controlled by
ownership of farmland, which was not generally for sale but a hereditary
property. After 1809, tenants renting a large enough farm (ten times
larger than what was required of peasants owning their own farm) were
included as well as non-nobility owning tax-exempt land.
- To no estate belonged propertyless cottagers, villeins, tenants
of farms owned by others, farmhands, servants, some lower
administrative workers, rural craftsmen, travelling salesmen, vagrants,
and propertyless and unemployed people (who sometimes lived in
strangers' houses). To reflect how the people belonging to the estates
saw them, the Finnish word for "obscene", säädytön, has the literal meaning "estateless".
In
Sweden, the Riksdag of the Estates existed until it was replaced with a
bicameral Riksdag in 1866, which gave political rights to anyone with a
certain income or property. Nevertheless, many of the leading
politicians of the 19th century continued to be drawn from the old
estates, in that they were either noblemen themselves, or represented
agricultural and urban interests. Ennoblements continued even after the
estates had lost their political importance, with the last ennoblement
of explorer(
Sven Hedin) taking place in 1902; this practice was formally abolished with the adoption of the new
Constitution 1.1.1975, while the status of the House of Nobility continued to be regulated in law until 2003.
In
Finland, this legal division existed until the modern age. However, at
the start of the 20th century, most of the population did not belong to
any Estate and had no political representation. A particularly large
class were the rent farmers, who did not own the land they cultivated,
but had to work in the land-owner's farm to pay their rent. (Unlike
Russia, there were no slaves or serfs.) Furthermore, the industrial
workers living in the city were not represented by the four-estate
system. The political system was reformed, and the last Diet was
dissolved in 1905, to create the modern parliamentary system, ending the
political privileges of the estates. The constitution of 1919 forbade
giving new noble ranks, and all tax privileges were abolished in 1920.
The privileges of the estates were officially and finally abolished in
1995,
[2]
although in legal practice, the privileges had long been unenforceable.
However, the nobility has never been officially abolished and records
of nobility are still voluntarily maintained by the
Finnish House of Nobility.
Nevertheless,
the old traditions and in particular ownership of property changed
slowly, and the rent-farmer problem became so severe that it was a major
cause to the
Finnish Civil War.
Although the division became irrelevant following the establishment of a
parliamentary democracy and political parties, industrialization and
urbanization,
it might be possible to claim that their traditions live on in the
political parties of Sweden and Finland, in the sense that there are
parties that have traditionally represented upper-class and business
interests (
Moderate Party and Coalition Party) and farmers (the Centre Parties of
Sweden and
Finland).
[citation needed]
In
Finland, it is still illegal and punishable by jail time (up to one
year) to defraud into marriage by declaring a false name or estate
(Rikoslaki 18 luku § 1/Strafflagen 18 kap. § 1).
In the Holy Roman Empire
Main article:
Imperial State
The
Holy Roman Empire had the
Imperial Diet (
Reichstag). The clergy was represented by the independent prince-bishops, prince-archbishops and
prince-abbots of the many monasteries. The nobility consisted of independent aristocratic rulers: secular
prince-electors,
kings, dukes, margraves, counts and others. Burghers consisted of
representatives of the independent imperial cities. Many peoples whose
territories within the Holy Roman Empire had been independent for
centuries had no representatives in the Imperial Diet, and this included
the
Imperial Knights and independent villages. The power of the Imperial Diet was limited, despite efforts of centralization.
Large
realms of the nobility or clergy had estates of their own that could
wield great power in local affairs. Power struggles between ruler and
estates were comparable to similar events in the history of the British
and French parliaments.
The
Swabian League,
a significant regional power in its part of Germany during the 15th
Century, also had its own kind of Estates, a governing Federal Council
comprising three Colleges: those of Princes, Cities, and Knights.
In the Russian Empire
In late
Russian Empire the estates were called
sosloviyes. The four major estates were: nobility (
dvoryanstvo),
clergy,
rural dwellers, and urban dwellers, with a more detailed stratification
therein. The division in estates was of mixed nature: traditional,
occupational, as well as formal: for example, voting in
Duma was carried out by estates.
Russian Empire Census recorded the reported estate of a person.
In Catalonia
Main article: Catalan Parliament
The Parliament of Catalonia (
Corts Catalanes) was established in 1283, according to American historian
Thomas Bisson, and it has been considered by several historians as a model of medieval
parliament.
For instance, English historian of constitutionalism Charles Howard
McIlwain wrote that the Parliament of Catalonia, during the 14th
century, had a more defined organization and met more regularly than the
parliaments of England or France.
[3]
The roots of the parliament institution in Catalonia stem from the Sanctuary and Truce Assemblies (
assemblees de pau i treva) that started on the 11th century. The members of the parliament of Catalonia were organized in the Three Estates (Catalan:
Tres Braços):
- the "military estate" (braç militar) with representatives of the feudal nobility
- the "ecclesiastical estate" (braç eclesiàstic) with representatives of the religious hierarchy
- the "royal estate" (braç reial) with representatives of the free municipalities under royal privilege
The parliament institution was abolished in 1716, together with the rest of institutions of Catalonia, after the
War of the Spanish Succession.
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