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The miniature from the 14th-century French manuscript depicts the nobility, clergy, and peasants. The idea of dividing society into three classes - those who fought, those who prayed and those who worked - goes back at least to the 9th century. By the 12th century it had already become slightly anachronistic through the emergence of a 'middle' class between the nobles and the peasants: lawyers, doctors,merchants and so on. But the 'three estates' was a convenient model.
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