What Spanish social rank is Alonso Quijano described as?

Alonso Quijano is described as a hidalgo, a member of Spain’s untitled lower nobility.

In Cervantes’ novel, Quijano lives in La Mancha and belongs to a social class that possessed noble status without holding a hereditary title such as duke or marquis. Hidalgos could vary greatly in wealth and influence; many were modest landowners rather than powerful aristocrats. Their rank nonetheless carried legal and social privileges, including traditional exemptions from certain taxes.

This detail matters because Quijano’s reading of chivalric romances clashes with his ordinary provincial life. He transforms himself into the self-styled knight Don Quixote, while the word hidalgo remains a description of his real social position. A common mix-up is treating hidalgo as equivalent to “knight”: it denotes nobility, not necessarily knighthood or military service.