1355–1356: Estates General, War Fiscal Policy, and the Return of Raids

From 1355 onward, the resumption of English operations challenges the monarchy: a paid army costs dearly, and ordinary revenues are insufficient. John II then convenes the Estates General to obtain broader fiscal consent, at a moment when elites mostly fear one thing: monetary instability.

---

💰 May 1355: Financing an Army

On May 8, 1355, the Estates are convened as truces draw to an end. The objective is to find more efficient and controllable resources. But taxes come in poorly, and the state attempts to restart the financial machine by recalling specialists in accounts and currency.

These choices are accompanied by new tensions: each devaluation or currency “mutation” transfers wealth and directly affects nobility, clergy, and bourgeoisie, many of whom live on fixed nominal incomes (rents, leases).

---

🐎 1355: The Black Prince and the Logic of Raids

After negotiation failures, the truce ends (summer 1355). The Black Prince launches from Bordeaux a great raid that crosses and devastates regions of the South: plundering, fires, ransoms, insecurity. This strategy aims both to destroy the French war economy and to show the crown’s impotence to protect its subjects.

---

🧾 December 1355 – March 1356: Consenting, But Controlling

On December 2, 1355, Estates of the langue d’oïl convene in Paris, in the palace of the Cité. Cities, with figures like Étienne Marcel, seek to regulate tax use: no blank check.

The Estates accept a tax on transactions (eight deniers per pound), but set conditions:

• control of collection and use of funds;
• search for “strong” and stable currency;
• creation of a college of officers designated to oversee levy.

Convened again in March 1356, they attempt to broaden the base (to include land revenues), but this supposes an administration capable of evaluating such revenues: the project reveals the weakness of fiscal instruments of the era.

---

🧠 To Remember

• War imposes fiscal consent, but the Estates demand guarantees.
• Currency becomes a central political question.
• Raids combine military violence and economic warfare.