What is Estates of the realm?
The '''Estates of the realm''' were the broad orders of social rank and [[hierarchy]] in [[Europe]] from the 6th century to the 17th century (up until the 18th century in the case of [[France]] under the [[Ancien Regime]]) that divided the population into a series of '''estates''', although how many depended on the country and era. Often people who did not own any land were not included at all. Medieval parliaments were generally divided to match. In pre-revolutionary [[France]], [[Scotland]], [[Catalonia]] and [[Portugal]] the three estates were * '''First Estate''' - [[clergy]]. * '''Second Estate''' - [[nobility]]. * '''Third Estate''' - [[commoner]]s.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Taxes and the Three Estates {{!}} History of Western Civilization II|url=https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/taxes-and-the-three-estates/|access-date=2023-11-17|website=courses.lumenlearning.com}}</ref> In [[Sweden]] and [[Russia]], burghers (the urban merchant class) and rural commoners were split into separate estates, so there were four estates. In [[Rhodesia]] a similar system was set up in 1961 with voter rolls A and B for people who owned property or had educational qualifications. This was mostly the 230,000 white people. Most of the 4 million black didn't qualify.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Harold Wilson the winner|url=https://archive.org/details/haroldwilsonwinn0000nick|last=Thomas-Symonds|first=Nick|publisher=Weidenfield & Nicolson|year=2023|isbn=9781474611961|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/haroldwilsonwinn0000nick/page/n223 214]}}</ref> Some people refer to [[journalism]] as the '''Fourth Estate'''. ==References== {{reflist}} {{history-stub}} [[Category:Hierarchy]] [[Category:History of Europe]]