Brazilian Nobility (Parallel Brazil)

The Brazilian nobility refers to the noble families of Brazil. Brazilian nobles are persons who possess the legal status of hereditary nobility according to the laws and traditions of the Brazilian monarchy. A system of titles and honours of Brazil and of the former kingdoms that constitute it comprise the Brazilian nobility. Some nobles possess various titles that may be inherited, but the creation and recognition of titles is legally a prerogative of the King of the United Provinces of Brazil. However, no noble title was created by the Brazilian since the mid-19th century.

Differently from other colonial nobilities in the Americas, the Brazilian nobility started its existence early in the Brazilian history, and many of those nobles are descendant of European noble houses.

Some aristocratic families use the nobiliary particle de before their family name.

Differently from the European nobilities, the Brazilian nobles were never exempt from any taxation and had no political and economic priviledges given by the government. The majority of them were rich bourgeois families.

The Brazilian nobility is officialy divided into sanguine nobilium (nobles by blood), whose hold hereditary titles, and honoris nobilium (nobles by honor), whose are granted non-hereditary titles.

Titles and Ranks
The ranks of the hereditary nobility are as follows: The titles of the non-hereditary nobility are as follows:
 * Duque (Duke)
 * Marquês (Marquis)
 * Conde (Count)
 * Visconde (Viscount)
 * Barão (Baron)
 * Lorde-Confidente da Coroa (Lord-Confident of the Crown): also known only as Lord-Confident. It is the title given by the monarch to everyone who becomes the Chancellor of Brazil.

Forms of Address
All titled nobles of the Brazilian nobility are addressed as His/Her Illustrous or Lord/Lady. The during the colonial times, thousands of Englishmen, as well as Scots, settled in Brazil. They introduced the terms lord and lady to the Brazilian vocabullary, fully supplanting the Portuguese forms of address senhor and senhora, which were used in Brazil to address to commoners.

The Noble Houses
During the colonial period (1500-1821), 49 families received noble titles from the Portuguese monarch because of their influence, wealth and power. Those families came from the most diverse origins, such as the Miranors being descendants from the Manowan royalty, the Nagatanis being descendants from Japanese daimiyos, the Paleologus being descendents from a Byzantine Emperor's bastard, and the Gévaudan being descendants from a humble French merchant.

The Brazilian Noble Houses are: