Estates of the realm in the context of "Nobility"

The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the Coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799. Many of the revolution's ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, and its values remain central to modern French political discourse. It was caused by a combination of social, political, and economic factors which the existing regime proved unable to manage.

Financial crisis and widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General in May 1789, its first meeting since 1614. The representatives of the Third Estate broke away and re-constituted themselves as a National Assembly in June. The Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, including the abolition of feudalism, state control over the Catholic Church in France, and issuing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944), describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. A broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry, all of whom were bound by a system of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as a "feudal society".

The Estates General of 1789 (French: États Généraux de 1789) was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). It was the last of the Estates General of the Kingdom of France.

Summoned by King Louis XVI, the Estates General of 1789 ended when the Third Estate, along with some members of the other estates, formed the National Assembly and, against the wishes of the king, invited the other two estates to join. This signaled the outbreak of the French Revolution.

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale, [asɑ̃ble nɑsjɔnal] ), which existed from 17 June 1789 to 9 July 1789, was a revolutionary assembly of the Kingdom of France formed by the representatives of the Third Estate (commoners) of the Estates-General and eventually joined by some members of the First and Second Estates. Thereafter (until replaced by the Legislative Assembly on 30 September 1791), it became a legislative body known as the National Constituent Assembly (Assemblée nationale constituante), although the shorter form was favored.

One of the central events of the French Revolution was the abolition of feudalism, and the old rules, taxes, and privileges left over from the ancien régime. The National Constituent Assembly, after deliberating on the night of 4 August 1789, announced, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely." It abolished both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate (the nobility) and the tithes gathered by the First Estate (the Catholic clergy). The old judicial system, founded on the 13 regional parlements, was suspended in November 1789 and finally abolished in 1790.

The Bohemian Revolt (German: Böhmischer Aufstand; Czech: České stavovské povstání; 1618–1620) was an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty that began the Thirty Years' War. It was caused by both religious and power disputes. The estates were almost entirely Protestant, mostly Utraquist Hussite but there was also a substantial German population that endorsed Lutheranism. The dispute culminated after several battles in the final Battle of White Mountain, where the estates suffered a decisive defeat. This started re-Catholisation of the Czech lands, but also expanded the scope of the Thirty Years' War by drawing Denmark and Sweden into it. The conflict spread to the rest of Europe and devastated vast areas of Central Europe, including the Czech lands, which were particularly stricken by its violent atrocities.