Portugal and Brazil
Both Portuguese and Brazilian peerages formerly also used the term Grande ("grandee"), to designate a higher rank of noblemen. The Brazilian system, for instance, automatically deemed dukes, marquises and counts (as well as archbishops and bishops) Grandes do Império ("Grandees of the Empire", or in a literal translation "Great Ones of the Empire"). Viscounts and barons could be ennobled with or without grandeza ("grandeeship", literally "greatness").
Viscounts ennobled with grandeeship used an earl's coronet in their coat of arms, and Barons ennobled with grandeeship bore a coat of arms surmounted by a viscount's coronet.
The order of precedence in Brazilian nobility was as follows, after the members of the Imperial Family: dukes, marquises, counts, viscounts with grandeeship, viscounts without grandeeship, barons with grandeeship, barons without grandeeship.
In Brazil, grandeeship, as well as the titled nobility itself, was not hereditary.
Grandees were allowed to keep their heads covered in the presence of the king or the emperor; only to be arrested by permission of the monarch (in Portugal); and allowed display their coat of arms by the front door of the home, on vehicles, or at the grave. The abolition of monarchy in each country extinguished the system, although it remained in use by Portuguese aristocracy.
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