As Armas e os Súditos. O Poder Militar

The article intends to study the military organizations charged with rendering free services and to which all subjects able to bear arms were compulsorily engaged: the ordinance and auxiliary armies. Our aim is to demonstrate that the importance of such military organizations throughout the second half of the eighteenth century was due not only to their function of defense and maintenance of territorial possession, but also to their role and the relevance assumed in its symbolic potential to express and represent a social order they were intent on building.The article intends to study the military organizations charged with rendering free services and to which all subjects able to bear arms were compulsorily engaged: the ordinance and auxiliary armies. Our aim is todemonstrate that the importance of such military organizations throughout the second half of the eighteenth century was due not only to their function of defense and maintenance of territorial possession, but also to their role and the relevance assumed in its symbolic potential to express and represent a social order they were intent on building.O artigo tem por objeto de estudo as organizações militares encarregadas da prestação de serviços gratuitos e a que eram obrigatoriamente engajados todos os súditos em condições de tomar armas: os Corpos de Ordenanças e de Auxiliares. Temos por objetivo demonstrar que a importância de tais organizações militares na segunda metade do século XVIII dava-se não somente em função de sua defesa e manutenção da posse territorial, mas, também, devido ao papel e à relevância que assumiam em sua potencialidade simbólica de expressar e representar uma ordem social que se queria construir. &nbsp