Western Civilization - History Of European Society

The Social and Economic Structure of the Old Regime 313

Historians have mostly studied corporative society
in France, where the population was divided into three
estates. The clergy, approximately 1 percent to 2 per-
cent of the nation, comprised the first estate. The aris-
tocracy, also less than 2 percent of the population,
formed the second estate. The remaining 97 percent of
France, from bankers to vagabonds, collectively made
up the third estate. In central Europe, the Ständestaatof-
ten contained four orders (Stände) because Scandinavian
and German law divided what the French called the
third estate into two parts, an order of town dwellers
and another of peasants. The constitutions of the Old
Regime, such as the Swedish Constitution of 1720,
retained the ideal of corporative society. German ju-
risprudence perpetuated this division of the population
throughout the eighteenth century. A fifty-volume
compendium published in the 1740s, reiterated the
principles of the Ständestaat,and they were embodied in

subsequent legal reforms, such as the Frederician Code

in Prussia.

The society of the Old Regime was more compli-

cated than simple legal categories suggest. In England,

the legal distinctions among social groups were mostly

abolished during the seventeenth century. The English

aristocracy remained a privileged and dominant elite,

but a new stratification based upon nonlanded wealth

was also emerging (see table 17.2). In contrast, Russian

fundamental laws perpetuated a rigid corporative soci-

ety, and eighteenth-century reforms only tightened the

system. In central Europe, yet another pattern devel-

oped where reformers known as cameralists refined the

definitions of social categories. Austrian tax laws

adopted in 1763, for example, divided the population

into twenty-four distinct categories.

The composition and condition of each estate var-

ied across Europe. The Polish aristocracy included 10

Individuals Population Percentage

Social group on tax rolls (with families) of England

Aristocracy 4,560 57,000 1.0

Landowning gentry 172,000 1,036,000 18.8

Small farmers 550,000 2,050,000 37.2

Rural total 726,560 3,143,000 57.0

Merchants 10,000 64,000 1.2

Educated professions 25,000 145,000 2.7

Clergy 10,020 52,520 0.9

Government service 10,000 70,000 1.3

Urban trades 110,000 465,000 8.5

Laborers 360,000 1,275,000 23.2

Urban total 525,020 2,101,520 38.3

Military officers 9,000 36,000 0.7

Soldiers and sailors 85,000 220,000 4.0

Military total 94,000 256,000 4.7

TABLE 17.2

The Social Structure of England in the Old Regime

The data in this table are based upon statistical calculations

made by Gregory King in the last years of the seventeenth

century, based upon a study of the tax rolls.