ABSTRACT
In early modern Europe, the royal court was easily identified as a contested space, teeming with elites who jockeyed for position and vied for patronage. Two factors ushered the debut of the new courtier, and indeed a new court culture. The first was an emphasis on learning that accompanied the burgeoning humanist movement. The second was a generalized economic recovery that began in many European kingdoms around the turn of the sixteenth century. In Portugal, such recovery was marked with a sudden enrichment, as the crown came to control the European spice trade. Part of this emphasis originated from the humanist education offered to royal children. Although its antecedents lay in the Gallego-Portuguese tradition of twelfth- and thirteenth-century troubadour poetry, the depth, creativity, and nature of the court satire set the poems of the Cancioneiro Geral apart from earlier works. In Portugal, where the economic rebound was marked by rapid enrichment, the impact on the royal court was more dramatic.
