It  was  in  accordance  with  this  character  of  a  general  tax  that  the  choice
of  the  treasurer  of  the  empire,  whose  office  it  was  to  receive  the  money
from  the  commissioners  or  collectors  stationed  in  all  parts  of  the  country,
was  also  entrusted  to  the  States.  Maximilian  engaged  to  levy  the  Common
Penny  in  the  Austrian  and  Burgundian  dominions  upon  the  same  plan,
and  to  set  the  example  herein  to  all  other  sovereigns.
But  if  the  collection  of  the  money  could  not  safely  be  entrusted  to  the
king,  still  less  could  its  application.  After  the  proposal  for  a  council  of
the  empire  had  been  suffered  to  drop,  the  idea  of  a  yearly  meeting  of  the
Estates  of  the  empire  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  the  public  expenditure,
first  suggested  by  Nicholas  von  Kus,  and  then  proposed  in  the  project  of
1 49 1,  was  revived.  This  assembly  was  to  meet  every  year  on  the  first  of
February,  to  deliberate  on  the  most  important  affairs,  internal  and  ex-

1  Notice  from  a  document  of  later  date  in  Harpprecht,  Staats-archiv.  des
Reichskammergerichts,  ii.,  p.  249.
