WI: Four Estates in the Society

Over the time, European* Society has often been divided into three orders or estates: the clergy, the nobility and the Third Estate. It is a division that has a long history (In Caroligian times, it was Oratores ("those who pray"), Bellatores ("those who fight") and Laboratores ("those who work")).

Is it possible to have instead Four Estates, the fourth one being the Merchant Class/Bourgeoisie? If so, how would that affect society?

*I'm saying "European" because I know it worked this way in Europe. Might have also worked outside of that continent, but as I don't know the subject enough, I prefer to avoid saying an absurdity.
 
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The fourth estate is the media.
Okay, but that didn't really apply in the pre-modern era.

Japan had a four-tier class system: Samurai, Artisans, Merchants, Peasants.

I think the concept of the last one would be "those who distribute goods/services (via a private enterpise)" but I know it wouldn't be thought of that way. So those fight/lead, those who pray, those who cultivate, those who.... fashion? Supply?

Give merchants/artisans a more respected role in Roman Society and that will do it. Part of the problem was that trade and commerce were very difficult in Europe from the end of Rome until the end of the Viking Era, so there wasn't a critical mass to spur bourgeoisie development until after 1066 (to pick a generally applicable date). Contrast to Byzantium who had a much more developed and robust economy, where merchants were fully engaged and intertwined in society and the state by the 1100s.
 
Historically, even before the French Revolution and until the end of XIX, you have mention of four States.

-Nobility
-Clergy
-Peasants
-Proletariat/Workers/Whatever you name it.

For Carolingian times...having a merchant class is unlikely. It developed really only in post carolingian times, mostly because nobles had to rely on trade instead of pillaging for gaining wealth and exotic/luxury goods.
And even then, it was the clergy that mainly was the base of this trade at least until the X century.

And after that, the carolingian inheritance was so important for feudal institutions that it's unlikely to have a brutal addition of bourgeois as a class.
In fact, even during the middle-ages, the merchant class searched to rise socially up to be part of the nobility : Le Goff illustrated that by saying that in 5 generations a bourgeois faimily became noble.

So i think you'll lack the stability proper to an "estate" to qualify the merchants of "Fourth Estate".
 
In fact, even during the middle-ages, the merchant class searched to rise socially up to be part of the nobility : Le Goff illustrated that by saying that in 5 generations a bourgeois faimily became noble.
That's a good point. The Castile bourgeoisie did the same in the middle-ages. They would get rich enough so they could buy land (which was True Security) and eventually force their way into the noble classes for various perks and security. Thus, the middle class succeeded so well they entered the landed upper class keeping the middle class small. Thus my RoS project to decouple security and success from landownership by any and all means possible!
 
That's a good point. The Castile bourgeoisie did the same in the middle-ages. They would get rich enough so they could buy land (which was True Security) and eventually force their way into the noble classes for various perks and security. Thus, the middle class succeeded so well they entered the landed upper class keeping the middle class small. Thus my RoS project to decouple security and success from landownership by any and all means possible!

It seems to have not worked that way in England, somehow. Or at least, the tendency didn't go there.

Wonder why.
 
It seems to have not worked that way in England, somehow. Or at least, the tendency didn't go there.

Wonder why.

I would suppose that the english feudality was more cloisoned than french one. The anglo-norman idendity as marker of nobility was probably too important until the HYW to allow anglo-saxon bourgeoisie to rise within its ranks.

In fact, didn't the rebellion of great anglo-normand lords coincide with periods where the enligh king favoured the english bourgeoisie, such as during the reign of John II?

Furthermore the less important rentability of agricultural production, and the fact it was more easy to just raid France (with more gains) played a role. (Didn't many enlish bourgeois just buyed lands in Guiana or Gasconha instead of English ones? I'm not sure on how important it was)
 
I would suppose that the english feudality was more cloisoned than french one. The anglo-norman idendity as marker of nobility was probably too important until the HYW to allow anglo-saxon bourgeoisie to rise within its ranks.

In fact, didn't the rebellion of great anglo-normand lords coincide with periods where the enligh king favoured the english bourgeoisie, such as during the reign of John II?

Furthermore the less important rentability of agricultural production, and the fact it was more easy to just raid France (with more gains) played a role. (Didn't many enlish bourgeois just buyed lands in Guiana or Gasconha instead of English ones? I'm not sure on how important it was)
Hmm, so you're saying that by the time the middle-classes were rich enough to become aristocracy, there was no land in England to get and so all that money (capital) had to go somewhere?

I wonder if that's tied to the fiscal policies of the English governments after the Tudors? Hmm...
 
Hmm, so you're saying that by the time the middle-classes were rich enough to become aristocracy, there was no land in England to get and so all that money (capital) had to go somewhere?

I wonder if that's tied to the fiscal policies of the English governments after the Tudors? Hmm...

I'm not saying it was exactly that. Just putting the money elsewhere could have been just more interesting, critically when the possession of land would have not led so easily to nobility.
I think it could be a link between the yeomen that couldn't rise further and the fact they preferred to go raid and campaigning in France.

For your question, sure, it's going to make a good subject for a thesis.
 
The Swedish system (the Riksdag of the Estates) did actually work this way, as did Finland's for a bit.

They were Nobility, Clergy, Burghers and Peasants (really freemen landowners). The last two were equivalent to urban and rural middle class respectively. The non-free and the tenant landowners were considered outside this system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm#In_Sweden_and_Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksdag_of_the_Estates

More successful Swedish Empire imposes/exports ideas of the Fourth Estate to the German states, Poland, Russia, etc?
 
How about scientists/ philosophers becoming the 4th estate - 'those who think'

The problem is that the estates are not made by "What they do", but to "which group they are". In medieval society, you're are not so juged by what is your occupation, than what is your family : noble, clergy or commoner.

Admittedly, the "ones who thinks" and serve well the order society were soon or put into clergy (in fact, the easier way for a commoner, even a serve, to became savant was the church or monastery school, that you can quit after your majority) or into nobility.

But again, the "who that..." is more a modern help to defin the orders, in MA remember that the individual was before all things a representent of its social communauty.

It could be adverted, nevertheless, but before Carolingian times as the prestige of its social institutions would be too important to be easily or hardly, reverted later.

By keeping your idea of philosophers though...The problem is that the Church as the main scientific center of the western world since the late roman times...It's just too strongly associated to be plausibly separated.
 
I do admit for something like that to work you need a very early pod, where you would get some scientists/alchemists/philosopher guild that develops into a 4th estate later on.
And it indeed it would mean church would have to stick to religious things and leave science on its own island.
 
I do admit for something like that to work you need a very early pod, where you would get some scientists/alchemists/philosopher guild that develops into a 4th estate later on.
And it indeed it would mean church would have to stick to religious things and leave science on its own island.

"Philosopher guild"? Err...It's not working that way.

No, the church didn't made an ingerence into science...It's just philosophy and science that were totally the same : even Leonardo da Vinci praised the unity between the art and science.

So, you can't have "the church just have to let the scientist go freely", the high clergy WERE the scientists. Besides, the religious insitutions helped to promote scientific minds thanks to their schools where, i insit on it, education was free as long you participate in religious work and you was free to leave if you didn't want to take your vows even after the end of this education.

It's basically because of this the universities were under the protection of Church and that even the king couldn't easily impose his law until the decline of pontifical authority.
 
Medieval/Renaissance England had four distinct groups represented in Parliament. The House of Lords was split between Lords Temporal (Nobles) and Lords Spiritual (Bishops), and the House of Commons was split between the Knights of the Shires (representing commoners in the countryside, mainly yeomen (peasants usually couldn't vote)) and the Burgesses (representing townsfolk, mainly artisans and merchants (ordinary labourers usually couldn't vote)).

There was also, especially in the 17th-18th centuries, a different four-way split in terms of social stature: Nobles, Gentry (wealthy landowners without noble titles), the "Middling Sort" (artisans, merchants, and yeoman farmers), and ordinary commoners (peasants and labourers). By this period, clergy were generally considered to be parts of these classes (mainly gentry and the middling sort) rather than their own class.

The Nobility were a much smaller class than France and much of the rest of Europe: there were only a few dozen to a few hundred actual noble titles in England, titles were strictly catalogued and could only be created by the King (not simply assumed by "living nobly" as in France), and the nobility as a class was restricted to title-holders and their immediate families. Almost all of France's 18th century Second Estate would be considered Gentlemen rather than Nobles under English-style rules.
 
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