Cleric, Knight, and Peasant archetypes represent the virtues of prudence, fortitude, and temperance, respectively. Before creation of the gentry, there were analogous traditional social elites. This part of a 12th-century Swedish tapestry has been interpreted to show, from left to dating ukrainian guys, the one-eyed Odin, the hammer-wielding Thor and Freyr.

The “classic” formulation of the caste system as largely described by Georges Dumézil was that of a priestly or religiously occupied caste, a warrior caste, and a worker caste. This system of caste roles can be seen in the castes which flourished on the Indian subcontinent and amongst the Italic peoples. Kings were born out of the warrior or noble class. Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in “one holy catholic and apostolic Church”. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there emerged no single powerful secular government in the West, but there was a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Catholic Church. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West. In essence, the earliest vision of Christendom was a vision of a Christian theocracy, a government founded upon and upholding Christian values, whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine.

The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and Latin West. For a thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher. The last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. Beyond the fact that Clerical celibacy functioned as a spiritual discipline it also was guarantor of the independence of the Church.

Catholic Church has always aspired to a preponderant share in political power, it has never been able to monopolize it entirely, because of two traits, chiefly, that are basic in its structure. Celibacy has generally been required of the clergy and of monks. Therefore no real dynasties of abbots and bishops have ever been able to establish themselves. The fundamental social structure in Europe in the Middle Ages was between the ecclesiastical hierarchy, nobles i. First estate included the group of all clergy, that is, members of the higher clergy and the lower clergy. Second estate has been encapsulated by the nobility. Here too, it did not matter whether they came from a lower or higher nobility or if they were impoverished members.

At the top of the pyramid were the princes and estates of the king or emperor, or with the clergy, the bishops and the pope. The feudal system was, for the people of the Middle Ages and early modern period, fitted into a God-given order. The nobility and the third estate were born into their class, and change in social position was slow. Wealth had little influence on what estate one belonged to. The first estate comprised the entire clergy, traditionally divided into “higher” and “lower” clergy. Although there was no formal demarcation between the two categories, the upper clergy were, effectively, clerical nobility, from the families of the second estate or as in the case of Cardinal Wolsey, from more humble backgrounds. The second estate was the nobility.

Countries without a feudal tradition did not have a nobility as such. The nobility of a person might be either inherited or earned. The terms aristocrat and aristocracy are a less formal means to refer to persons belonging to this social milieu. Upper-class status commonly derived from the social position of one’s family and not from one’s own achievements or wealth.

In many countries, the term upper class was intimately associated with hereditary land ownership and titles. Before the Age of Absolutism, institutions, such as the church, legislatures, or social elites, restrained monarchical power. From the middle of the 1860s the privileged position of Baltic Germans in the Russian Empire began to waver. Russian nationalists, some sporadic steps had been taken towards the russification of the provinces.