Sinel de Cordes: from businessmen to secretaries of the Royal Chamber

Abstract

The Portuguese Expansion attracted many foreigners to Portugal in seek of fortune and status or, simply, for a better life. Lisbon became a dynamic commercial city where people and commodities arrived and leaved. Point of passage, it was a place where many foreigner families established. These families would see themselves as Portuguese and they would have a place in our history. One of these cases was the family Sinel de Cordes, object of the present article that wants to testify the process of fixation, integration and ascension of this family and to demonstrate that Portuguese nobility of the Ancient Regime was permeable, allowing the inclusion of foreigners of mercantile origins. The Sinel de Cordes coursed a long way, reaching, after getting rich doing overseas business, the nobility and becoming secretaries of the Royal Chamber, one of the most important charges in the high bureaucracy of the State.