“ Estates in land may be classified according to (1) the quantity of their interest or duration, (2) the time of enjoyment, and (3) the number and connexion of the tenants. According to (1) , an estate may be either a freehold of inheritance or a freehold not of inheritance. A freehold of inheritance may be (a) an estate in fee simple, which is the largest estate a man can hold in English law, and comes close to the idea of absolute ownership, repudiated by Williams ”

“ The Swedish diet had also four—clergy, barons, burghers and peasants.
The system of estates, based on the medieval conception of society as divided into definite orders, formed the basis of whatever constitutional forms survived in Europe till the French Revolution. In England, of course, it had early become obscured, the House of Commons representing the whole nation outside the narrow order of the peers. The creation of an estate of lesser nobles or landowners had been prevented by the fusion of the knights of the shire with the burgesses ”

“ In the constitutional struggles of the European continent, from the Revolution onward, the rival theories of representation by estates and of popular representation have played a great part. The crucial moment of the French Revolution was when the vote according to “order” was rejected and the estates of the clergy and nobles were merged with the tiers état, the states-general thus becoming the National Assembly. ”

“ In 1428 commissioners of shires, men elected by the minor tenants-in-chief, were ordered to appear in parliament; the greater tenants-in-chief then coalesced with the prelates and the three estates were the lords, clerical and lay, the commissioners of shires and the burgesses. From 1640 to 1660 parliament was reorganized, the prelates being excluded, but at the Restoration the old order was re-established. ”