Historian and Professor of Law at the University of Coimbra, António Coelho da Rocha was born in the parish of São Miguel do Mato in the Arouca council area. His parents, the small farmers Francisco José da Rocha and Ana Maria Coelho, who were “rich in probity but not in fortune”, entrusted his education to his paternal uncle, the Abbot of Santo André de Cristelos (“Elogio histórico do autor”, Ensaio…. 1896, p.VI), and he managed to rise through the social order thanks to his ecclesiastical and university studies.

An outstanding student, his career was dotted with constant reversals in both his own pecuniary fortune and the fortune of national politics. Under religious patronage, he was sent to Porto and in 1809 completed the preparatory studies required for university entrance, although the French invasions meant that he was only able to actually go up to Coimbra in October 1811. He simultaneously attended both the University of Coimbra’s Faculty of Laws and its Faculty of Canon Law. He really wanted an ecclesiastical post, but ended up only obtaining the initial degree (bacharel) in Canon Law, in 1816. He abandoned the idea of a religious career due partly to obstacles that stood in the way of his enrolment for a full degree in Canon Law, but also on the advice of a group of friends, who particularly included Basílio Alberto de Sousa Pinto (1793-1883), who had been his fellow student since Porto and was later to become Rector of the University (1859-63). Rocha obtained his bacharel in Laws in 1815, and was one of the two students on the course to receive a distinction. The next year, he received his full degree (licenciatura) in Laws, and in June 1817 defended his thesis (Apresentação à Universidade de Coimbra, 1951). Lack of funds prevented him from immediately moving on to a doctorate, and he only returned to Coimbra in the following academic year.

He thus received the essence of his education at a number of ecclesiastical institutions and the University of Coimbra, and there is nothing to suggest he travelled abroad. Of his literary training, we only know that he learnt Latin from an early age, as part of both his ecclesiastical and his university studies. It seems clear that he was well versed in French, given that he cites a number of works that he may have read at the Royal College of São Pedro de Coimbra (now the General Library; examples include Dictionnaire universel des sciences morale, économique, politique et diplomatique; and Bibliotheque de l'homme-d'état et du citoyen, by Jean-Baptiste René Robinet, 1777-1783), which is where, until 1834, graduates prepared themselves to become teachers, and where Rocha was a scholar from 1826 to 1828.

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