"Middle class" historically did not mean middle income. Middle class was literally that, people who were of the class that sat between serfs/peasants and nobil

"Middle class" historically did not mean middle income. Middle class was literally that, people who were of the class that sat between serfs/peasants and nobility. That is, guild master craftsmen (not the apprentices and worker bees), merchants, bankers, educated clerks and the like. That is, what we today would consider "professionals".