The social mobility of foreign nations in late medieval Andalusian cities: the Adorno family and the political society of Jerez de la Frontera (1470-1520)

In the late Middle Ages, Andalusia had a strategic position on the navigation routes between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean which encouraged settlement in major foreign merchant communities. Although historiography has shown that these contacts led to social transformations in these spaces, there are few studies dedicated to these groups' incorporation into municipal power institutions. In this work, we explore the issue by studying the Genoese Adorno family and the town of Jerez de la Frontera. With particular reference to its Municipal Archive, the origin and bases of their socioeconomic and political power have been reconstructed, as have relevant details on their integration by means of the construction of sumptuous burials and marriage policies. We can corroborate that it was possible for a wealthy merchant family to reach the peak of municipal power if they adequately invested the profits of their activities in the purchase of government offices, rural property and real estate and, above all, cultivated advantageous links with former ruling families.