Iberian nobility in the (High) Modern Age: the merit, the lineage, the discourse

Abstract

This text intends to draw an analysis of the theoretical and literary implications, so to speak, of the working concept of “nobility” in modern-age Iberian Peninsula. Through the reading of discourse pieces from the early seventeenth century, such as treatises on nobility, war chronicles, and administrative documents, we attempt to trace correspondence that showcases the cultivation of classicist topoi and of discourse fomented in the Portuguese culture of the sixteenth century. Our reflections regarding the sources in question take aim at the understanding of merit and lineage - not mutually exclusive categories in sight of the corpus we are working with. As such, this work of ours is a non-exhaustive exercise of overlapping discursive modalities which relay the noble ethos of the Iberian modern age, particularly that of Portugal.