First Estate

In France of the ancien régime and the age of the French Revolution, the term First Estate (Fr. premier état) indicated the clergy; the Second Estate were the nobility, 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.

See also

See also:

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• Estates of the realm, especially for comparison to the United Kingdom.
• Second Estate, Third Estate, Fourth Estate
• social class, class warfare, etc.