Abstract
The paper analyses the concept of aristocracy in Portuguese-Brazilian culture between the 17th and 19th centuries. The approach highlights the persistence of mediaeval semantics in Brazilian discourses and challenges the idea of a “modern transition”. The study focuses on a broad time frame to examine historical contexts in which different political languages about “nobility” were relevant. The central thesis is that despite the liberal and democratic semantics available in the 19th century, the typical concept of aristocracy from Portuguese mediaeval corporatism remained present in Brazilian language use. To show this, the study analyses a wide range of records such as newspapers, letters and historiographical books. Special attention is paid to the historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, the main advocate of the “hereditary aristocracy” in Brazil.
Keywords:
aristocracy; modernity; political thought; historiography; press