<P> 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 Riksdag of the Estates . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> In one sense, the composition and powers of the Estates General always remained the same . They always included representatives of the First Estate (clergy), Second Estate (the nobility), and Third Estate (commoners: all others), and monarchs always summoned them either to grant subsidies or to advise the Crown, to give aid and counsel . Their composition, however, as well as their effective powers, varied greatly at different times . </P> <P> In their primitive form in the 14th and the first half of the 15th centuries, the Estates General had only a limited elective element . The lay lords and the ecclesiastical lords (bishops and other high clergy) who made up the Estates General were not elected by their peers, but directly chosen and summoned by the king . In the order of the clergy, however, since certain ecclesiastical bodies, e.g. abbeys and chapters of cathedrals, were also summoned to the assembly, and as these bodies, being persons in the moral but not in the physical sense, could not appear in person, their representative had to be chosen by the monks of the convent or the canons of the chapter . </P>

Who represented the third estate in the estates general