Recompensar servicios con honores: el crecimiento de la nobleza titulada en los reinados de Felipe IV y Carlos II

Abstract

During the seventeenth century, the nobility titled ceased to be a select and limited group for to open up gradually to new members, even without a noble origin, who were able to achieve a nobility title trough diverses systems that were established for it. Although there are few studies about the creation of these honors during this century, it seems that until the reign of Philip IV, the nobility titles were granted mainly to firstborns and younger sons of the main noble Houses. However, since then and especially in the reign of Charles II, the policy of creating nobility titles varied significantly by the large increase they experienced, and because in large part they were awarded to whom offered the money as the main merit. In this study, based on existing studies and consultation of unpublished documents, we analyze, among other things, the change that the top of the privileged class experienced during this period, the merits that were rewarded with grants so precious, and the new elites who managed to get this honors. Although there were new graduates who responded to the traditional concept of nobility, there were also nobility titles that were granted to people with dark or uncertain origins, who had served to the Crown only with the «merit» of money.