However, as his patriotism and his favourable attitude towards the Allies became known, he ran the danger of being sent to a concentration camp in Germany. Marshal Pétain himself advised him to leave France for America or for a Portuguese university. As he recounts in the preface to the work Études historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal, his choice was dictated by the prestige of the University of Coimbra and the peace that reigned there. Pierre David arrived in Coimbra on 30 March 1941, officially at the request of the Institut Français [French Institute] in Portugal and on a "university mission", to teach Provençal Literature in the Faculty of Letters. It was therefore in the University of Coimbra's Faculty of Letters and in the recently founded Doutor António de Vasconcelos Institute of Historical Studies that he would centralize the new stage of his academic career. He taught courses of Archaic French, Provençal Language and Literature, Medieval Latin, History of Medieval Institutions, History of Education in the Middle Ages and Sources for Portuguese and Spanish Medieval History.

Soon afterwards, he once again began his historiographical production, but now about Portugal. The topics he chose were in the area of ecclesiastical history insofar as this intersects with the early days of Portugal. He had works published in various journals: Biblos, Boletim do Instituto de Estudos Franceses, Bulletin des Études Portugaises (of the Institut Français of Portugal), Bulletin Hispanique (of the Bordeaux Faculty of Letters), Humanitas, Liturgia, Revista Portuguesa de História, Revista Portuguesa de Filologia, etc. Father Avelino de Jesus da Costa, his disciple and friend, systematized his published and unpublished works related to Portugal into three genres: i) historical works, ii) historical-liturgical, canonical and hagiographical works, and iii) literary works and works on religious culture. The majority of these studies have been published, but some remain unpublished or only in draft form.

Pierre Hourcade tells us that every summer Pierre David left Coimbra for Lisbon in order to be on the jury for the oral exams of the bachelor’s degree run by the Institut Français. Also in the summer, when he went back to France, he lectured on courses at the École Normale (Paris).

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