What was the Estate General

What was the estate general?

Answer: Estates-General, also known as States General or États-Généraux, was the representational assembly of the three “estates,” or orders of the realm, in pre-Revolutionary France: the clergy (First Estate), nobility (Second Estate), and the Third Estate, which represented the mass of the people.

The roots of the Estates-General may be traced back to 13th-century counsel and assistance traditions, as well as the emergence of corporate representation. On April 10, 1302, the first national assembly of members from the three estates assembled at Notre-Dame in Paris to debate Philip IV (the Fair) and Pope Boniface VIII’s quarrel. 

The assembly backed the king wholeheartedly, and the conference was followed by a national poll of popular opinion. The three estates met at Tours in 1308 to discuss the suppression of the Templars, and they met again in succeeding years, particularly after Louis X’s death in 1316, when the royal succession and fiscal problems took centre stage. 

The estates convened in Pontoise and Poitiers in 1320, refusing to provide Philip V a subsidy to support the royal coffers on both occasions.

The “Council of Notables” also offered the king counsel. This was a bunch of nobles at the top of things. 

Roughly 100,000 First Estate members, 400,000 Second Estate members, and around 27 million Third Estate members lived in France in 1789.

Before becoming clerics, several members of the First Estate were commoners.

Many of them were sympathetic to the Third Estate’s difficulties and concerns. Moving from the Third Estate (commoner) to the Second Estate (gentry) was a relatively unusual occurrence (noble) The citizens from each estate chose the members to the Estates General Assembly.