French Estates-General

In France under the Old Regime, the Estates General (French: États généraux) or States-General was a legislative and consultative assembly (see The Estates) of the different classes (or estates) of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king. It had no true power in its own right—unlike the English parliament it was not required to approve royal taxation or legislation—instead it functioned as an advisory body to the king, primarily by presenting petitions from the various estates and consulting on fiscal policy. The Estates-General met intermittently until 1614 and only once afterwards, but was not definitively dissolved until after the French Revolution.

It is comparable to similar institutions across Europe, such as the States General of the Netherlands, the Parliament of England, the Estates of Parliament of Scotland, the Cortes of Spain, the Imperial Diet ("Reichstag") of the Holy Roman Empire or Germanic Empire, the Diets (German: Landtage) of the "Lands", and the Swedish

In 1302, expanding French royal power led to a general assembly consisting of the chief lords, both lay and ecclesiastical, and the representatives of the principal privileged towns, which were like distinct lordships. Certain precedents paved the way for this institution: representatives of principal towns had several times been convoked by the king, and under Philip III there had been assemblies of nobles and ecclesiastics in which the two orders deliberated separately. It was the dispute between Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII which led to the States-General of 1302; the king of France desired that, in addition to the Great Officers of the Crown of France, he receive the counsel from the three estates in this serious crisis. The letters summoning the assembly of 1302 are published by M. Georges Picot in his collection of Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire de France. During the same reign they were subsequently assembled several times to give him aid by granting subsidies. Over time subsidies came to be the most frequent motive for their convocation.

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