At the beginning of the 14th century appeared the states general (_etats generaux_), which were often convoked, though not at fixed intervals, throughout the whole of the 14th century and the greater part of the 15th. Their power reached its height at a critical moment of the Hundred Years' War during the reign of King John. At the same time there arose side by side with them, and from the same causes, the provincial estates, which were in miniature for each province what the states general were for the whole kingdom. Of these provincial assemblies some were founded in one or other of the great fiefs, being convoked by the duke or count under the pressure of the same needs which led the king to convoke the states general; others, in provinces which had already been annexed to the crown, probably had their origin in the councils summoned by the _bailli_ or seneschal to aid him in his administration. Later it became a privilege for a province to have its own assembly; those which did so were never of right subject to the royal _taille_, and kept, at least formally, the right of sanctioning, by means of the assembly, the subsidies which took its place. Hence it became the endeavour of the crown to suppress these provincial assemblies, which in the 14th century were to be found everywhere; from the outset of the 15th century they began to disappear in central France. Royal taxation. The most characteristic feature of this period was the institution of universal taxation by the crown. So far the king's sole revenues were those which he exacted, in his capacity of feudal lord, wherever another lord did not intervene between him and the inhabitants, in addition to the income arising from certain crown rights which he had preserved or regained. But these revenues, known later as the income of the royal domain and later still as the _finances ordinaires_, became insufficient in proportion as the royal power increased; it became a necessity for the monarch to be able to levy imposts throughout the whole extent of the provinces annexed to the crown, even upon the subjects of the different lords. This he could only do by means of the co-operation of those lords, lay and ecclesiastical, who alone had the right of taxing their subjects; the co-operation of the privileged towns, which had the right to tax themselves, was also necessary. It was in order to obtain this consent that the states general, in most cases, and the provincial assemblies, in all cases, were convoked. In some cases, however, the king adopted different methods; for instance, he sometimes utilized the principle of the feudal aids. In cases where his vassals owed him, as overlord, a pecuniary aid, he substituted for the sum paid directly by his vassals a tax levied by his own authority on their subjects. It is in this way that for thirty years the necessary sums were raised, without any vote from the states general, to pay the ransom of King John.