McGee, Timothy, J., ed. Medieval Instrumental Dances. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1989.
Streng-Renkonen, Walter O., ed. Les estampies françaises. Paris: Champion, 1930.
ESTATES (GENERAL)
. An assembly of nobles, clergy, and representatives of towns from the whole kingdom or
at least most of Languedoil. Although the term was not used until 1484, “the three
estates” are mentioned as early as the mid-14th century, and it is convenient to refer to
the Estates General when distinguishing assemblies of this type from those of a more
restricted social and geographical character.
Great barons and prelates had long attended royal assemblies of one sort or another,
and the king had sometimes summoned nonnoble laymen as individuals who were
experts on the matter to be discussed. “Estates” applies only to assemblies to which
numbers of towns were told to send representatives. Such a summons not only
established towns as the voice of the “third estate” (nonnoble laymen), but it also gave
assemblies a representative character for the first time. After 1484, nobles and clergy
were convened in most districts to choose representatives when the Estates were
summoned, but for a long time persons from other than the third estate were summoned
as individuals and did not serve as representatives of their social peers.
When the towns began sending representatives, the model for such action was the
naming of a proctor (procurator) to represent a corporate body’s legal interests before a
court. Towns gave their representatives a “procuration” empowering them to act on
behalf of the town. This fact has persuaded some historians to view the early Estates as
analagous to a judicial proceeding subject to the rules of Roman and canon law, but in
practice those who attended these assemblies seem not to have accepted that model. Their
actions suggest that they understood these assemblies in more traditional, feudal terms, in
which an obligation to give counsel was far more meaningful than the right of consent
described in Roman law. Particularly when money was at stake, representatives often
avoided making a binding commitment to anything for which they had not received
precise advance instructions.
The king convened assemblies like the Estates General when he hoped such a body
would be useful to him. At rare moments of crisis, the Estates tried to limit the king’s
authority in some area, but such exceptional action only persuaded the king to call the
assembly less frequently. The Estates General was not a body whose function was to
limit royal power.
The Estates General first appeared as a sort of propaganda forum in which the royal
government hoped to drum up support for some potentially controversial policy. The
earliest documented examples of this sort of assembly belong to 1302, 1308, and 1312,
when Philip IV sought support for his ecclesiastical policies. Over the next ten years,
numerous assemblies of different sorts were convened. A group of assemblies, divided by
region and/or the estate in attendance, sometimes had the effect of composing what
amounted to an Estates General, but the government was still experimenting.
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