What are the overall characteristics of the presence of this group of men and women alongside the Portuguese monarchs who, as stated above, shared the same material and symbolic spaces? How were they integrated in these spaces, and what relationship did they build among themselves, and with the monarchs? In an attempt to answer these questions, medieval sources once again respond with a diverse panorama, so giving rise to further questions. In the first analysis, we find that this was a matter of a constant presence in some cases and of a more precarious duration in others; paid in some cases, in others not, according to the way in which the individuals (or even certain groups) made use of the complex group of roles and functions at court. In my opinion, the identification and study of these characteristic forms of participation are an indispensable, empirical basis for the study of the court as a social configuration of the past. In fact, whether it is theoretical proposals of the sociology of configuration which are adopted, the abstract perspective of the theory of systems, or the more restricted optic of the theory of social exchange, I believe it to be beyond doubt that the understanding of court society requires to be nurtured directly with the wealth resulting from the actual process of construction of historical sources, with new data and new theories arising which present a greater degree of coherence and explanatory capacity of the cultural reality of pre-modern societies in their variety and specificity.