Abstract
Bohemian linen (and glass) represented in the 18th century within the frame of the Habsburg empire important export article for trade in Europe as well as with the overseas regions. The aim of this article is not only explain briefly the general context of these commerical activities, tied to the Iberian Peninsula, but especially to focus on little or completely unknown facts: namely, the relation of the brothers František and Václav Sperling from Náchod to Portugal.
There was not only the exportation of linen and its innovative final chemical processing (bleaching) in Bohemia and in Portugal, or the commencement of the importation of Brazilian raw sugar and its refinement in Bohemia, but also other important problem, not only for the period under study: the problem of integration of foreigners into "other" environment. In this case the integration of Central Europeans (often a priori suspected of heresy) in dominantly Catholic terrain of the Iberian Peninsula.