An <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/historiated_initial" class="extiw" title="w:historiated initial">inhabited initial</a> from a 13th-century French text representing the tripartite social order of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages" class="extiw" title="w:Middle Ages">Middle Ages</a>: the <i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orator#Latin" class="extiw" title="wikt:orator">ōrātōrēs</a></i> (those who pray – clerics), <i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bellator#Latin" class="extiw" title="wikt:bellator">bellātōrēs</a></i> (those who fight – knights, that is, the nobility), and <i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/laborator#Latin" class="extiw" title="wikt:laborator">labōrātōrēs</a></i> (those who work – peasants and members of the lower middle class).
Unknown author<span style="display: none;">Unknown author</span>.
13<sup>th</sup> century <div style="display: none;">date QS:P,+1250-00-00T00:00:00Z/7</div>
"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://faculty.uml.edu/ccarlsmith/teaching/43.105/PDFs/Medieval%20Society%20and%20Architecture.pdf">Cleric, Knight and Workman representing the three classes</a>", a French School illustration from <i>Li Livres dou Santé</i> (late 13th century, vellum), MS Sloane 2435, folio 85, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Library" class="extiw" title="w:British Library">British Library</a>/<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library" class="extiw" title="w:Bridgeman Art Library">Bridgeman Art Library</a>; losslessly adapted from <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060115103059/http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/hss/medieval/">https://web.archive.org/web/20060115103059/http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/hss/medieval/</a>.