ESTATE. In a political sense, a distinct class or order in society. The three estates under the feudal system were the nobles, the clergy, and the commons. The feudal theory was that the basis of all power was property in land, and the clergy held their position in the feudal order by virtue of their landed proprietorship. As the lay rulers grew stronger, the temporal authority of the clergy declined, until at the present time they form a corporation rather than a class. The history of the later Middle Ages is a record of the rise of the third estate. They were the repre sentatives of the merchant class, the bourgeoisie. They first arose to prominence in the free cities of Italy and of the Hanseatic League. In Spain and England, especially, the absolute power of the Crown was the product of the alliance of the King and the third estate against the nobles. Before the Union (1707) the term Estates of the Realm was used in Scotland as equivalent to Parliament. The legislative assembly of Holland was also known as the States General. The
States General of France•, composed of the three estates. was first convened at the beginning, of the fourteenth century. The last meeting pre vious to the Revolution of 17S9 was in 1614-15.
At the outbreak of the Revolution the summon ing of this body was resorted to when all other expedients failed. The old established custom was to vote by orders, but as the third estate (tiers-•at) would thus have been in the now Assembly, its members determined to intro duce the new principle of voting individually. In this they succeeded, and with their success and the organization of the National Assembly, the French Revolution may be said to have begun. The term 'fourth estate' is often applied to the press. its first use in that sense is attributed by Carlyle to Edmund Burke, who pointed to the reporters' gallery in the House as containing a fourth estate more powerful than the other three.