Fidalgo

[4] As late as the reign of Afonso III (1248–1279), who completed the reconquest of the Algarve, the nobility was not differentiated as it would be later.

[5] Below the ricos homens was a descending category of their vassals: the infanções, the knights (cavaleiros), and the squires (escudeiros).

Large segments of the nobility did not side with John I in the crisis of 1383–1385 and the subsequent war with Castile; they lost their lands after the new king secured his claim to the throne and were replaced by a new nobility, elevated from previously non-noble families and modeled on the English system.

"[5] By the start of the fifteenth century, the term infanção fell out of use and "knight" came to mean all those below the ricos homens.

Fidalgo began to be emphasized because, in its sense of someone who had inherited nobility, it differentiated the older knights from the growing bourgeoisie that continued to gain access to knighthood through accomplishments in the service of the state.