The bourgeoisie originated as a social group in European cities from the eleventh century on, referring specifically to those male burghers who earned their living through artisanal work, trade, and commerce. With the advent of the industrial and ideological revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this group assumed sociological significance as a social class, namely as a group of people that shared a common material location in society with ensuing economic and political interests that they concomitantly pursued. Across time and space, the most significant debates around the term bourgeoisie pertain to its relation first to social and political, and later cultural spheres.