Estate satire is a genre of writing from 14th Century, Medieval literary works. The three Medieval estates were the Clergy (those who prayed), the

Nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...

(those who fought) and lastly the

Peasantry A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

(those who labored). These estates were the major

social classes A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, inco ...

of the time and were typically gender specific to men, although the clergy also included nuns. Nevertheless, women were considered as a separate class in themselves, the best-known example being

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

Wife of Bath "The Wife of Bath's Tale" ( enm, The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe) is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales, Canterbury Tales''. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of inte ...

. Estates satire praised the glories and purity of each class in its ideal form, but was also used as a window to show how society had gotten out of hand. The ''Norton Anthology of

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

'' describes the duty of estates satire: "They set forth the functions and duties of each estate and castigate the failure of the estates in the present world to live up to their divinely assigned social roles". The First Estate, the Church, consisted of those who ran the Catholic church and part of the country. They were the recipients of the ''

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash or cheques or more r ...

'' or the 10% tax given to the Church. The Second Estate, the Nobility, were royalty, not including the King. They were never taxed but could collect taxes from the Third Estate, and had other special privileges. The Third Estate, the Commons, is the largest, consisting of around 98% of the population (UCL). The commons included everyone who did not belong to the first two estates, primarily rural

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

and the urban

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

or middle class. They had none of the privileges or luxuries that the first two estates enjoyed, although the rise of capitalism in the late 14th Century resulted in the bourgeois having relatively more power. Among 14th-century English authors,

John Gower John Gower (; c. 1330 – October 1408) was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and the Pearl Poet, and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civ ...

William Langland William Langland (; la, Willielmus de Langland; 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as ''Piers Plowman'', an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem tr ...

, and

were three of the most prominent writers of the time to include estates satire in their works. Although Gower was more aggressive in his approach, Chaucer was more subtle and more successful, making himself to be the fool of the joke and subverting many of the conventions of the genre.Mann, ''Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire''. Several Medieval authors used estates satire to express their disgust towards the hypocrisy of the three estates and their supposed virtuous ways.

References

* *Mann, Jill. ''Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. * *{{ cite journal , title=THE WICKED AGE: MIDDLE ENGLISH COMPLAINT LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION , editor1=George W. Tuma , editor2=Dinah Hazell , journal=Medieval Forum , year=2008 , url=https://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/complaintlit/estates_intro.html Medieval literature Satire