TITLES OF NOBILITY CONFERRED DURING THE REIGN OF PHILIP V: A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

This article shows how since the last decades of the 20th century, there has been significant interest in the Spanish nobility of the Modern Age, which has resulted in numerous works of great importance. Most of this research, which has followed the lead set by Antonio Dominguez Ortiz in the middle of the 20th century, has explored various aspects of the noble estates of the realm or has analysed certain noble families. Even so, despite the otherwise solid historiographic literature on nobility, comparative studies of nobility in other countries remain scarce, as do general works about the collective nobility and the categories thereof. In this regard, good progress has been achieved in recent years thanks to research on the different levels of nobility - such as the knights of Military Orders and titles of nobility-, mainly in relation to the first half of the 18th century. The work presented here is dedicated mostly to a historiographical review of all the studies that have contributed recently to learning more about select groups of nobility, and especially the titles of nobility conferred during the reign of Philip V.