COIMBRA, Diocese of. - In Portugal, it extends over 5,300 sq km and has 571,256 inhabitants, of whom 547,428 are Catholics; it has 254 parishes, served by 252 secular priests and 10 regulars.
It seems that this important diocese is one of the oldest in Lusitania; nevertheless, good documents on its religious life and chiefly on its hierarchs before the 6th century are lacking. All the Churches of that region were subject to the influence of the ancient metropolitan see of Emerita; from Merida, therefore, C. must in the earliest times have received its ecclesiastical organization.
The first known bishop is Lucentius, Lucecius, as one reads in certain codices, who signs as present at the Council of Braga of 561, which he repeats in 572 at the II Council of the same metropolitan see, on which it already then, as also today, depended. The last Coimbran bishop during the Visigothic domination is Emila, who is found in 693 with the fathers of the XVI Council of Toledo; after him there is a long interruption in that episcopate because of the terrible Saracen invasion, which forced the clergy and a great part of the faithful to take refuge in the northern mountains of the peninsula. Again a bishop by the name of Naustus is remembered in the last decades of the 9th century, but neither he nor his successors until the reconquest of the city and territory of C. (which was in 1858, or according to some chroniclers in 1864) were able to enter the diocese. A few years later this see was governed by the sadly famous Maurice Burdino, later archbishop of Braga and finally in 1118 the antipope Gregory VIII, created by the emperor Henry V. After the death of his successor at C. there was a vacancy of the see for 31 years. Famous in the 16th century are the Augustinian bishops John VII Soares and Gaspar de Casal, who took part in the Council of Trent, and Emanuel de Menezes, who died in the famous battle of Alcácer Quibir (1578), together with the last king of the dynasty, Sebastian, after whom Portugal fell under Spanish domination, which was the cause of diplomatic and religious conflicts until the recognition of the new Portuguese dynasty.
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UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA
Chronologically, it is the first of the Portuguese universities. Conceived by King Denis with the letters patent of 1 March 1290 (and the ecclesiastical authorities of the time collaborated in this), the new "Estudo Geral" received academic prerogatives with the papal bull De statu regni Portugaliae of 9 Aug. 1290, by Nicholas IV. It began to function in Lisbon, with the teaching of the trivium and quadrivium, of canon law, civil law and medicine, but in 1308 it was transferred by King Denis to C., geographically better suited because of its central position and already a notable center of studies organized by ecclesiastical bodies: the new seat, quieter and more favorable to intellectual work, also had the advantage of not being an environment favorable, as that of the capital was, to student turbulence and inevitable excesses.
Brought back to Lisbon by order of King Alfonso IV, it remained there until 1354, to return to C. until 1377, a period in which the last Lisbon interlude began in the time of King Ferdinand. This coming and going ceased in 1537, when King John III decreed that the University should have its definitive seat in C. and placed at its disposal his own palaces, to be suitably adapted. Rich in distinguished masters, many of whom had been trained in the most celebrated intellectual circles of Europe, the Studium of C. has always been a luminous center of national culture: its teaching has often crossed the nation's borders, and in turn has frequently been guided by the learning of foreign scholars, among whom Italians are not lacking.
After the privileges granted in 1309 by King Denis, the structure of the University of C. gradually took shape on the model of the Studium of Bologna, branching into the four fundamental faculties: Theology, Canon Law, Civil Law, Medicine.
In its centuries-long life various periods are worthy of note: the one marked by the vigorous impulse that King John III gave to national culture; the new European orientation imparted by King John V; the reform carried out by the Marquis of Pombal in the 18th century.
The subsequent reforms, more or less successful, strove to modernize university teaching in order to adapt it to the new intellectual and social needs of the nation. Of the five faculties existing in the last century at the time of the reforms of Passos Manuel, that is, in 1835, that of Theology was transformed into a faculty of Letters in 1911, and that of Philosophy (a Pombaline creation) became a faculty of Sciences. The other three were those of Law, Medicine and Mathematics.
At present the University of C. consists of: 1) faculty of Letters, four-year, which grants the title of "licenciado" (necessary for secondary teaching) and of "doctor"; 2) faculty of Law, which grants the title of "bachelor" to those who complete the four-year course, that of "licenciado" to bachelors who pass the complementary fifth year with a mark of at least 12/20, and that of "doctor"; 3) faculty of Medicine, with a six-year course, from which one emerges with the degree of "licenciado" or, by submitting to further examinations, with the title of "doctor"; 4) faculty of Sciences, four-year or, for geographical engineers, five-year; 5) school of Pharmacy.
All those who aspire to a university career must possess the academic title of "doctor," which licenciados may obtain after passing various written and oral examinations.
The University of C., which still preserves characteristic traditional academic customs of centuries-long memory, and singular student usages, with the unmistakable Portuguese saudade, is today on the path of a radical building transformation; the new "university city" is in full fervor of works, most modern and austere in its architectural line, complete and modern in its new installations. - See Pl. CXXV.
