Ständebaum or Tree of Social Classes (1532)

Early Modern society was a picture of inequality, with its members hierarchically divided into various ranks—nobility, the clergy, the urban patriciate and bourgeoisie, and an urban and a rural middle and lower class. In addition, there were also minorities and marginalized groups, such as the Jewish population. A large part of the population, the so-called “common man” or “common woman” (the third estate), had no say whatsoever in matters of governance. This Ständebaum (literally: tree of social classes) was taken from a 1532 German-language edition of a Latin work by Renaissance humanist Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). It depicted and legitimized this social order along, with its inherent inequality. It is worth noting, however, that the reality of social stratification proved even more complex than this Ständebaum suggests.