Depictions of the Three Orders and Estates around the Year 1500

Book excerpt: This volume highlights the copious and various depictions of the three orders of society during the Late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Early Modern Period. It discusses the origins and development of the trifunctional division into the orders of the oratores, bellatores and laboratores, and the abundantly preserved visual material, which proves that this scheme was one of the most widespread ideological foundations of European societies at that time. Late Gothic and Renaissance depictions of the three orders of society can be found in different mediums, from woodcuts to wall paintings, and were produced by important artists such as J. Fouquet and Pieter Bruegel, as well as anonymous painters. The vast numbers of preserved examples of this topic confirm the significance and strength of this iconographic theme at the end of the Middle Ages.