Pre-modern history classes – how come there’s warrior, clergy, elite?

Question

I like history and I recently noticed that across different pre-modern cultures there’s almost always seem to be at the most basic level always the 3 classes: an elite class, a warrior class and a clergy class. Why is that? Why not food-producers or something?

In: 0

Answer 1

Farmer class is by far the most common, accross all of history (unless, of course, you are the Mongols).

Also in many religions/cultures the three you listed aren’t distinct groups, so they only have 2/3 – in Islam for instance, clergy and elite can be the same person (the Caliph being the main example), while in Tengri tribes warrior and elite are the same thing, and in Japanese Buddhism warrior and clergy are the same thing.