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In France of the ancien régime and the age of the French Revolution, the term Second Estate (Fr. second état) indicated the nobility and (technically, though not in common use) royalty, the First Estate were the clergy, and the rest of the population constituted the Third Estate. From these terms came the name of the medieval French national assembly: the Estates-General (Fr. Etats-Généraux), the analogue to the British Parliament but with no constitutional tradition of vested powers: the French monarchy remained absolute.
The Second Estate is traditionally divided into "noblesse d'epee" ("nobility of the sword") and "noblesse de la robe" ("nobility of the gown"), the magisterial class that administered royal justice and civil government.
The French inheritance system of primogeniture meant that nearly all French fortunes would pass largely in a single line, through the eldest son.
Under the ancien régime, the Second Estate were exempt from most forms of taxation.
The notion of Estates of the realm also exists in Britain, where a close analogue to the French Second Estate would be the Lords TemporalThis article is about the British House of Lords. See also the historical Irish House of Lords. The House of Lords is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also includes the Sovereign and the British House of Commons. The House of Lor. The picture is somewhat complicated by the British concept of gentryThe gentry refers to a social class of landowners. In Chinese history, the gentry has a specific meaning and refers to the shen-shi or the class of landowners that had passed the bureaucratic examinations in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In European histor who are not nobility.
See main article French States-General.
The first Estates-General was called by Philip IVPhilippe IV, the Fair ( French Philippe le Bel ( 1268 November 29, 1314) was King of France from 1285 to 1314. A member of the Capetian Dynasty, he was born at the Royal Palace of Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne the son of King Philippe III and Isabella of in 1302, in order to obtain national approval for his anticlerical policy. Philip organized the assembly into three divisions, and every following Estates-General up to 1789 maintained the division.
The Estates-General of France dwindled in importance, and after 1614Events April 5 In Virginia, Native American Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe. October 11 Adriaen Block and a group of Amsterdam merchants petition the States General for exclusive trading rights in the area he explored and named " New Nether it was not called again for 175 years.
See main article Estates-General of 1789The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting of the French Estates-General, a general assembly consisting of representatives from all but the poorest segment of the French citizenry, since 1614; the independence which it displayed from the crown pave.
In May 1789Events January 7 First nationwide United States election January 21 The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth is printed in Boston, Massachusetts January 23 Georgetown College becomes the first Catholic coll, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General in order to address the financial crisis of the kingdom, which was effectively bankrupt. By this point, however, the French aristocracy has declined in power and influence, while the bourgeoisie had become much more important and conscious of itself as a class. The Third Estate, containing representatives of the bourgeois, asked for greater share of representation than it had possessed in earlier centuries; they were given twice as many representatives, but since voting was to be by the three Estates rather then by individual representatives, this gave them no immediately meanigful advantage. The Third Estate then asked for all estates to meet together as a single body.
On June 12, 1789 the Communes, the representatives of the Third Estate, invited the other orders to join them. (Some nobles, notably Mirabeau, were already present, having been elected to represent the Third Estate.) On June 17, 1789 the Communes declared themselves the National Assembly and ( June 20, 1789) signed the Tennis Court Oath demanding a constitution for France.
Over the next week, most of the First Estate (and some of the Second) joined the National Assembly; on June 27 the king ordered the rest to follow. This was the end of the formal system of Estates of the Realm.