La profesión del noble

The comedia El Aldegüela, attributed to Lope de Vega, is loosely inspired by the life of Fernando García de Toledo, an illegitimate son of the third Duke of Alba, who eventually procured for Fernando the title of Great Prior of Castile and León. Insofar as it dramatizes the protagonist's rise to social prominence through a successful military career, this text can be linked to Lope's earlier work El hijo Venturoso. However, a closer examination of El Aldegüela reveals in it a different ideological approach towards the alleged natural superiority of the nobility in matters of war, and one that is more opposed to an egalitarian concept of merit based on the development of skills and on non-hereditary virtues. In contrast to El hijo Venturoso, El Aldegüela seeks to establish a compromise between these two opposing points of view. Its more conciliatory stance was probably influenced by the various proposals emerging at the period for the reform of the Spanish military, a highly debated issue in the years following the death of the third Duke of Alba

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