Madeira in the University of Coimbra

By a charter of 22 September 1460, Henry the Navigator made a grant to the University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra) of ‘twelve marks of silver’, to be paid out of the tithes that the Order of Christ (Ordem de Cristo) collected in the Madeira archipelago and intended specifically for the professor holding the ‘prime’ chair of the faculty of theology. The deed in question is transcribed on pp. 39 ff. of the Memoria da Faculdade de Teologia da Universidade de Coimbra by Dr Mota Veiga. The Infante’s will contains a clause that reads: ‘I ordain that the professor of the prime chair shall have each year for ever twelve marks of silver from the first revenue of the tithes that the Order of Christ has in the Island of Madeira.’

The distinguished priest from São Miguel, Friar António do Presépio, who died in 1931, extracted from the archive of the University of Coimbra the names of all the Madeirans and Azoreans who attended that institution of higher learning over the long period from 1578 to 1730. From these names he compiled a long and interesting alphabetical list. It not only contains valuable material for the biographies of many illustrious sons of the Adjacent Islands (Ilhas Adjacentes), but also gives us useful information on the relatively large number of students from the Azores and Madeira who studied at the University of Coimbra in that period. The list comprises 589 names: 276 belong to Madeira, 149 to the island of São Miguel, 108 to Terceira, 24 to Faial and the remaining 32 to the other Azorean islands. It can be seen that, in proportion to the population, the number of Madeiran students who attended the University in that period was much higher than that from the various islands of the Azores archipelago.

Because it is far too long, we do not reproduce here this list of 276 names of students, covering a period of 157 years, but we have had it published in vols I and II of the Arquivo Histórico da Madeira (‘Historical Archive of Madeira’), where it can be found.