Cortes (politics)

[3] Because of its consultative nature, the vassals were encouraged to present their problems, and the monarch acted on the vassals' requests, which were formulated in two main types of documents:[8] Initially, the participation in the Cúria was an act of vassalage and not a prerogative, but progressively these assemblies evolved to a model less palatial and increasingly based on the approach to political, economic, and legislative problems.

The Cortes only became effective from the moment in which the "branch of the people" began to have a permanent seat in them, through the representatives of the counties, in addition to the nobility and the clergy, who had previously been closer to the king.

[1] From very early on, the custom was established that tax matters were decided with the agreement of the Cortes; thus the Cortes began by asserting their competence in matters of breakage or supplemental tax compensation, later extending, also by custom, the sphere of the need for their agreement to the creation of new taxes and loan authorizations, as well as the resolution of situations of absence of a legitimate heir to the Crown or the decision to assign the regency to one of several legitimate pretenders to the throne, recognition, and acclamation of the sovereign or heir.

Their decadence began with the evolution of the ideas of the legists, which were making the monarch less dependent on the great noble lords, and with the overseas economic expansion that freed them from the extraordinary taxes demanded from everyone.

[1] Also called the Assembly of Estates General in the context of Old Regime France, they were one of the driving forces behind the French Revolution of 1789.

[9] Faced with the severity and proportions of the French economic crisis, Jacques Necker, Finance Minister under Louis XVI, proposed to levy taxes on the clergy and nobility, causing the so-called Aristocratic Revolt (1787-1789).