 Just like the preceding Postulate Sejm , the Estates had very limited competences : they met to hear the Emperor decrees , distribute tax assessments , grant Galician titles of nobility to individuals who already held similar titles elsewhere in the Austrian Empire , prepare petitions and appeals to be heard by the Emperor . Polish 19th @-@ century historian , Henryk Schmitt , wrote that the role of the Estates was to listen to the government decisions , and file petitions , which often waited for the royal reply for several years ; he thus notes that the Estates were powerless , a " comedy " , their only purpose being to fulfill the Congress of Vienna requirement of having some form of " national representation " on the lands of the Austrian partition . 
