An intellectual class was also rising – people trained in literature but, unlike monks, not destined for church life. A merchant class had begun to rise and was quickly gaining money and power throughout secular society. By the late fourteenth century, the rigid organization of these three estates had begun to break down. In the Chaucer's portraits of the pilgrims, he sets out the functions of each estate and satirizes how members of the estates – particularly those of the Church – fail to meet their duties. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire. Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Peasantry (those who worked).
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