THE THREE ORDERS IN this chapter, we shall learn about the socio-economic and political changes which occurred in western Europe between the ninth and sixteenth centuries. After the fall of the Roman Empire, many groups of Germanic people from eastern and central Europe occupied regions of Italy, Spain and France. In the absence of any unifying political force, military conflict was frequent, and the need to gather resources to protect one’s land became very important. Social organisation was therefore centred on the control of land.
Its features were derived from both imperial Roman traditions and German customs. Christianity, the official religion of the Roman Empire from the fourth century, survived the collapse of Rome, and gradually spread to central and northern Europe. The Church also became a major landholder and political power in Europe. The ‘three orders’, the focus of this chapter, are three social categories: Christian priests, landowning nobles and peasants.
The changing relationships between these three groups was an important factor in shaping European history for several centuries. Over the last years, European historians have done detailed work on the histories of regions, even of individual villages. This was possible because, from the medieval period, there is a lot of material in the form of documents, details of landownership, prices and legal cases: for example, churches kept records of births, marriages and deaths, which have made it possible to understand the structure of families and of population. The inscriptions in churches give information about traders’ associations, and songs and stories give a sense of festivals and community activities.
All these can be used by historians to understand economic and social life, and changes over a long period (like increase in population) or over a short period (like peasant revolts). Of the many scholars in France who have worked on feudalism, one of the earliest was Bloch. Marc Bloch ( – ) was one of a group of scholars who argued that history consisted of much more than just political history, international relations and the lives of great people. He emphasised the importance of geography in shaping human