Sumiller de Corps
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The Sumiller de Corps was the Officer of the Royal Household and Heritage of the Crown of Spain in charge of the more intimate and inner rooms of the King of Spain. He was responsible of the most immediate service to the Monarch. This Office was suppressed after the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931 and never re-created after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1975.
This Office was created when, during the Habsburg dynasty, the Spanish Royal Court was shaped after that one that existed in the Court of Burgundy where this Office “Sumiller” from the French “Sommelier”, literally “Wine steward” existed from the old past. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, but also King of Spain, imported the etiquette styled in the Court of his paternal grandmother Mary of Burgundy.
Regime during the 16th, the 17th and the 18th centuries
Diverse dispositions regulated the duties of the “Sumiller de Corps” distinguishing from those of the “Mayordomo mayor” to the King. Although this latter Office was hierarchically higher, the Office of “Sumiller de Corps” was mostly coveted by the high ranks of the nobility, the Grandees of Spain, as it gave full access to the intimacy of the King. And, certainly, thanks to this intimacy with the King, he could influence the concession and distribution of all kinds of graces and mercies. In fact, the Validos of the Habsburg Kings were always their “Sumilleres de Corps” as it happened with the Duke of Lerma and the Duke of Uceda with King Philip III or the Count-Duke of Olivares with King Philip IV.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the ceremonial laws regulating the Royal service confirmed the principal prerogatives that the traditional Burgundian etiquette granted to the “Sumiller de Corps”, in the measure in which they supposed a great intimacy and a physical daily contact with the Monarch. Those of the Royal Chamber of 1659 established that the organization of the closest service to the King corresponded to the “Sumiller de Corps” and, in this way, he might sleep in a bed in the same room of the Sovereign. If this was not possible, or the Monarch wanted to relieve him of this obligation, he had to sleep at least in the Royal Palace. He had, anyway, to deliver the King personally the towel, the shirt, the Golden Fleece, the clothes and the cap and, during meals and dinners, serve him the glass of wine.
Only a peer who had the rank of Grandee of Spain could be appointed for this Office.