Vicente Sodré

Vicente Sodré (c. 1465 – 30 April 1503) was a 16th-century Portuguese knight of Order of Christ and the captain of the first Portuguese naval patrol in the Indian Ocean. He was an uncle of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama.

Vicente Sodré was the son of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende) and Isabel Serrão. The Sodrés were a well-connected family of English origin, said to have been descended from Frederick of Sudley, Gloucestershire, who accompanied the Earl of Cambridge to Portugal in 1381, and subsequently settled down there.

Sometime in the 1470s, Vicente Sodré entered the service of D. Diogo, Duke of Viseu, the grand master of the Order of Christ. Sodré joined the Order of Christ himself, and rose to the rank of commendador, holding the commenda of Maninhos in Idanha around 1493. In 1494, he was dispatched by the order's new grand master, Manuel, Duke of Beja, to the order-owned island of Madeira to audit the repairs of the defenses of the town of Funchal.

After Manuel, Duke of Beja succeeded to the throne as King Manuel I of Portugal in 1495, Vicente Sodré, became a knight of the royal household. Around 1501, Vicente Sodré succeeded his powerful relative Duarte Sodré as alcaide-mor of Tomar, that is governor of the town and great Templar citadel, the spiritual home of the Order of Christ.

Vicente Sodré's siblings include his brother Brás Sodré and his sister Isabel Sodré, who married Estêvão da Gama and became the mother of Vasco da Gama. Unlike the Sodrés, the Gamas were attached to the Order of Santiago, perennial rivals of the Order of Christ.

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