Final answer:
Artists were not recognized as one of the three traditional estates of the Middle Ages, which were clergy, nobility, and commoners.
Step-by-step explanation:
The three estates recognized during the Middle Ages in European society were the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners or the Third Estate. Of the options provided, artists were not considered one of these traditional estates. In the social hierarchy of the time, artists would have been part of the broader category of commoners or possibly the bourgeoisie, if they were successful and connected with wealthy patrons. However, they did not constitute a separate estate with political representation in the Estates-General, the legislative body of pre-revolutionary France.