Alpha Book

Whether one visited Germany, Hungary,
France, or England, one was sure to find the agricultural population
sharply divided into two social classes--nobility and peasantry. There
might be varying gradations of these classes in different regions, but
certain general distinctions everywhere prevailed.
[Sidenote: The Nobility]
The nobility [Footnote: As a part of the nobility must be included at
the opening of the sixteenth century many of the higher clergy of the
Catholic Church--archbishops, bishops, and abbots--who owned large
landed estates quite like their lay brethren.] comprised men who gained
a living from the soil without manual labor. They held the land on
feudal tenure, that is to say, they had a right to be supported by the
peasants living on their estates, and, in return, they owed to some
higher or wealthier nobleman or to the king certain duties, such as
fighting for him, [Footnote: This obligation rested only upon lay
noblemen, not upon ecclesiastics.] attending his court at specified
times, and paying him various irregular taxes (the feudal dues).


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