The Estates

The Estates, also known as the States (États, Landstände, Staten, Hungarian: Rendek), was the assembly of the representatives of the estates of the realm, the divisions of society in feudal times, called together for purposes of deliberation, legislation or taxation. A meeting of the estates that covered an entire kingdom was called an estates general.

Overview
The first estate was the clergy, the second the nobility and the third the commoners, although actual membership in the third estate varied from country to country. Bourgeoisie, peasants and people with no estate from birth were separated in Sweden and Finland as late as 1905.

Representation through estates was the norm in Europe until the advent of popular representation beginning with the French Revolution. The Estates General of France were convoked only twice between 1614 and 1789, both times during the Fronde (1648–53), and in neither case did they actually meet. At the final meeting of the Estates in 1789, they voted to join in a single National Assembly, generally seen as marking the start of the French Revolution. Estates continued to meet in Navarre until 1828, in Hungary until 1848, in Sweden until 1866, and in the Duchy of Mecklenburg until 1918.

In some countries, the parliament kept the same name when its feudal organization was replaced with a more modern kind of representation, like census or universal suffrage. In Sweden, the Riksdag of the Estates was replaced with the Riksdag in 1866.

List of estates

 * Convention of the Estates of Scotland
 * Convention of Estates (1689)
 * Council of States (Switzerland)
 * Estates of the Netherlands Antilles
 * Estates of Aruba
 * Estates of Curaçao
 * Estates of Sint Maarten
 * Estates General (France)
 * Estates of Navarre
 * Landstände, the territorial estates within the Holy Roman Empire
 * Estates of Württemberg
 * Parliament of Scotland, a meeting of the three estates of the realm
 * Riksdag of the Estates, the former diet of Sweden
 * Stamenti, the former parliament of Sardinia
 * States of Alderney
 * States of Guernsey
 * States of Election
 * States of Jersey
 * States General of the Batavian Republic
 * States General of the Netherlands
 * States Provincial (France)
 * Estates of Béarn
 * Estates of Brittany
 * Estates of Burgundy
 * Estates of Languedoc
 * States Provincial (Netherlands)
 * States of Brabant
 * States of Drenthe
 * States of Flanders
 * States of Flevoland
 * States of Friesland
 * States of Gelderland
 * States of Groningen
 * States of Holland and West Friesland
 * States of Limburg
 * States of North Brabant
 * States of North Holland
 * States of Overijssel
 * States of South Holland
 * States of Utrecht
 * States of Zeeland
 * Zemsky Sobor