The Making of an Aristocratic Social Group: The Elite of the Lesser Nobility in Aragon, 1250-1350 (SP)

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to describe the factors intervening in the rise of an aristocratic elite among the Aragonese lesser nobility between the mid-thirteenth and midfourteenth centuries, as well as their ascent into the ruling circles of the Aragonese feudal state. For this purpose, this work has been organized in two parts. The first part explains the characteristics common to the whole lesser nobility in the kingdom and the ones proper to those enjoying higher status, notably, military leadership and service to the king, the possession of seigneurial dominions and the preservation of a domestic network of affinities and alliances.  The second part analyzes two of the means of power in the hands of this elite: the institutions linked to the monarchy and their sitting in the courts of Aragon. Two Annexes have been appended listing those Aragonese lesser nobles summoned by the king himself for five different offensive campaigns and five court assemblies, without interruption between 1300 and 1350.