The bourgeoisie in the cities of the Middle Ages was organised in estates. In addition to the nobility, German citizens formed guilds and the council, they provided the merchant community and most craftsmen. The Estonians and Latvians, then called "un-German", made up the lower social class. They were legally not citizens of the town or city, had no real estate and mostly lived out of town.
In the course of time, however, a class developed that could neither be assigned to the German nor to the "un-German" side. Social advancement was possible through assimilation, especially by learning of the German language.
The city inhabitants also included "literary men" – academics who immigrated after the Reformation and who formed the basis for a German-speaking educated bourgeoisie in the Baltic States.
At the end of the 19th century, the character of the cities changed: between 1867 and 1913 the population of Riga increased fivefold to 500,000. The share of the German-speaking population fell from 43 to 17 percent.