The stratified society of the Europe of the Old Regime –

The society of the old regime It was divided, according to traditional law, into three orders or estates: the clergywho was in charge of praying and ensuring divine protection; the royaltywho fought and protected the community from its adversaries, and the flat statewhich included groups as diverse as the peasantry, the bourgeoisie and the popular classes of the cities and whose social function was to produce all the material goods that society needed.

The main characteristic of the estate society was its civil inequality. This inequality led to the division into two well-differentiated groups: the privileged (nobility and clergy), who enjoyed rights and privileges and were exempt from taxes, and the non-privileged (the third estate or estate), who did not have privileges and had to bear all tax charges.

a stagnant population

The demography of the Old Regime responds to what scholars have described as ancient demographic cycle. This demographic regime was characterized by very high mortality and birth rates, low life expectancy and low population growth.

Malnutrition, lack of hygiene and the delay in medicine caused a very high mortality (between 30 and 40%). This mortality had particularly negative effects among children under one year of age. It is estimated that infant mortality was between 20 and 30% of children born alive. Moreover, an expression of P. Goubert, two births were needed to get an adult, because half of the children died before reaching 150 years of age. As a consequence, life expectancy was very low (approximately 28 years) and the average age of adults was close to 45 years. The birth rate was also very high. This rate was between 35 and 40% and it is estimated that each woman had an average of 5 children although, in the lean years, the number of births decreased considerably.

the privileged

The clergy were the first of the privileged groups and represented a very small part of the population (less than 1%). He did not have to pay any direct taxes and his income came from the tithe and from his own estate. He owned many urban and rural properties, and thus he enjoyed both the fruits of the crops and the rents from his farms. In addition, the bishops and abbots were lords of many towns and territories, from which they collected all the manorial income.

Despite its apparent unity, the clergy was not a homogeneous group but it was possible to distinguish between the high and low clergy. The first was made up of abbots, bishops, canons and high officials, people who came exclusively from the noble classes and lived in the luxury characteristic of the nobility, enjoying all its privileges.

In contrast, the second group (priests, parish priests and monks) were mainly people of peasant origin and had a modest life without luxuries or privileges.

The nobility was the second privileged estate and the fundamental core of the ruling class. Their troops were few and constituted between 2 and 3% of the population. The basis of their wealth was land ownership and together they owned between 30 and 40% of the land (in Spain). He also enjoyed a series of honorary concessions (the right to wear a sword, the reserved bench in the Church, the monopoly of access to high positions…), economic (hunting rights, exemption from working in public works…) and taxes (exemption from paying taxes and the right to collect them). However, it was not a homogeneous group either and there were enormous differences between the rich and powerful nobility of the Court and the nobility of the provinces.

The underprivileged

The third estate was represented by the vast majority of the population (between 90 and 95%) and grouped together very different social sectors, both due to their economic and social conditions. Despite this diversity, at the end of the Old Regime (18th century) they were united by a common interest: their opposition to social privileges and the maintenance of the feudal regime, as well as the demand for civil equality.

In essence, three large groups can be distinguished among the underprivileged: the bourgeoisie, the urban popular classes and the peasants. The bourgeoisie constituted the predominant class within the third estate, and was the most dynamic economic group in the entire society, since, in recent centuries, its wealth had increased markedly.

Within the bourgeoisie as a whole, one could differentiate between the rentier bourgeoisiewho lived on the income from his properties or capital, the financial (bankers and tax collectors); the manufacturing or industrial and, finally, the ppetty bourgeoisiewhich included artisans, small merchants and liberal professionals.

The urban popular classes grouped together a multitude of manual workers from the cities, whom the bourgeoisie contemptuously called “low town.” It encompassed both craftsmen (officials and apprentices) as well as factory workers, domestic staff and all the small trades in the cities. During the eighteenth century their living conditions had worsened as a result of the increase in the urban population and the rise in prices.

The peasantry was the largest group of the population of the Old Regime. Thus, for example, of the 23 to 25 million inhabitants that France must have had in 1789, 20 million were peasants. The condition of this population was very varied, depending on the legal situation of the people and the distribution of property, which leads us in the first place to distinguish between serfs and free peasants.

Free peasants could be tenants or landowners. However, most of them did not have properties and their living conditions were very hard, because the rise in prices of the 18th century made it even more difficult for them to subsist. On the other hand, most of the taxes fell on them: royal, ecclesiastical, stately… In this situation, the abolition of feudal structures was a unanimous demand of the peasantry of the Old Regime.

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