Aurician Social Classes

Aurician society is socially stratified both legally and culturally. The City of Aurice is the dominant pattern and the over-provinces and cities elsewhere in the empire are similar to this pattern.

Social Order	Description	Remarks
Duke Senator	Highest members of Senate; hold all principle power in the Senate and entitled to all the highest offices of government; wealthy land-owners
Baron Senator	Mid-level Senators; hold almost all the prestige of Duke Senators, but little of the power; wealthy land-owners
Metropolitan Senator	Low-level senators; little true senatorial power; considerable prestige; wealthy merchants
Metropolitan	Prestigious rank of nobility; no power in senate; commercial interests; wealthy merchants
Knight Gentry	Formerly pledged to the sometime Grand Duke of Aurice; they now pledge service to the city or to an officially recognized order; post-ducal knights often drawn from professional mercenary captains who want prestige; many officers in the military are Knights-Gentry	Knights-Magi of Aurice also fit into this class
Landed Gentry	Officially recognized bourgeois—recognized for skilled profession or accomplishment; able to hold lesser governmental offices by virtue of land-ownership
Landless Gentry	Officially recognized bourgeois—recognized for skilled profession or accomplishment; able to hold lesser offices by virtue of inherited status
Free Commoners	Untitled freeman, not tied to manor lord, but typically clients of someone else; Commoners come in a wide range of wealth, from dirt poor to very wealthy, such as Rhaurvace
Serfs	Land-tied peasants	Decree of Universal Emancipation throughout the Grand Duchy of Aurice (2576)