Hidalgo (nobility)

An hidalgo (Spanish) or a fidalgo (Portuguese and Galician) is a member of the Spanish or Portuguese nobility; the feminine forms of the terms are hidalga, in Spanish, and fidalga, in Portuguese and Galician.

Quotes

• His father’s name was Jose—Don, of course,—
    A true Hidalgo, free from every stain
  Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
    Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I

• She married (I forget the pedigree)
    With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down
  His blood less noble than such blood should be;
    At such alliances his sires would frown,
  In that point so precise in each degree
    That they bred in and in, as might be shown,
  Marrying their cousins—nay, their aunts, and nieces,
  Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.
  This heathenish cross restored the breed again,
    Ruin’d its blood, but much improved its flesh;
  For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain
    Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;
  The sons no more were short, the daughters plain:
    But there’s a rumour which I fain would hush,
  ’Tis said that Donna Julia’s grandmamma
  Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I