Chapter 2 Definitions

Question 1

corporate society

Answer 1

a society made up of a number of powerful groups, each enjoying its own special customs, laws and provoleges

Question 2

honorific

Answer 2

a certain type of privilege - for example, the noble’s right to wear a sword in public

Question 3

legal concessions

Answer 3

privileges relating to the law

Question 4

fiscal concessions

Answer 4

privileges relating to taxes

Question 5

estate (French: état)

Answer 5

in the old regime, this was a system of social classification by function: the clergy’s role was to pray (First Estate), the nobility’s role was to fight (Second Estate) and the commoners’ role was to grow food and provide soldiers for armies (Third Estate). Note that each estate was not just one social class, because it contained people ranging from the very poor to the very wealthy.

Question 6

peasants

Answer 6

these were members of the Third Estate who lived and worked in the country, engaged in agricultural work. Some were wealthy and some moderately well-to-do, but many were poor sharecroppers who did not own enough land to make a living, and had to rent it from their local lord

Question 7

artisans

Answer 7

workers who were trained and skilled in some trade, such as barrel-making or glass-making, who worked in small workshops in cities, towns and villages

Question 8

lower clergy

Answer 8

parish priests and assistants, who earned only 750 pounds yearly

Question 9

tithe

Answer 9

tax of between 8 and 10 per cent of people’s income, or of the value of their crops and livestock, pain to the local Catholic priest

Question 10

don gratuit

Answer 10

the contribution of the Catholic Church to the French state. The church had the privilege of calculating how much it would pay on each occasion

Question 11

corps

Answer 11

an organisation of military personnel

Question 12

noblesse d’epée

Answer 12

older ‘nobility of the sword’

Question 13

noblesse do robe

Answer 13

more recent ‘nobility of the robe’

Question 14

bourgeoisie

Answer 14

people of the third estate who lived in towns, owned property and engaged in trade, industry or the professions

Question 15

bourgeois

Answer 15

the individual members of the bourgeoisie

Question 16

vivre noblement

Answer 16

living off investments like a noble

Question 17

venal public office

Answer 17

the legal purchase of public office, often with a noble title attached, by wealthy and ambitious bourgeois who wanted to rise into the Second Estate

Question 18

feudal dues

Answer 18

extra payments of money, food or labour to the nobles

Question 19

culture of deference

Answer 19

this was not a legal but a social and psychological quality: people accepted that the rich and the powerful were superior, and instinctively paid respect to the privileged by changing the way they spoke and behaved in their presence