The Portuguese State of India and Its Social Integration Horizons

Services and Rewards for Royal Nobility in Contexts of Global War (1640-1660)

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze the spaces of social insertion and action undertaken by moços fidalgos of the Royal House [Casa Real] between the 1640s and 1660s in the Asian possessions of the Portuguese overseas empire. The group of nobles examined by this study provided services in India, according to the Inventário do Livro de Matrículas da Casa Real. The paper examines this group’s strategies to preserve political positions in Portuguese Asia during a period of serious political and military instability, one that resulted in the loss of several Portuguese posses-sions in confrontation with European and Asian powers. Many of these strategies were related to the worldview of the Regime and involved to traditional kinship relationships.