ABSTRACT
The existence of an aristocracy in Peru was the result of a process by which the Lima oligarchy consolidated its dominant position, which itself was based on the economic successes it had realized by the end of the eighteenth century. The aristocratization of colonial Peruvian society, adhered to the internalized reasoning of the old, baroque Hispanic societies. Spanish nobility stood out by its absence in America, but its place was occupied through a peculiar conception of 'family lineage', adapted to the special conditions of colonial Peru, blending 'criollismo' with the Spanish medieval tradition, and also with a bit of pride in the lost Inca empire. The other great, traditional economic activity of the Peruvian viceroyalty was mining. If, in the New Spain of the second half of the eighteenth century, mining constituted the main economic base for the nobility, the situation in Peru was completely different.
