His work as a historian was initially marked, as it naturally had to be, by his cultural experiences at the end of the 19th century when the idea was growing of history as a science (like linguistics) served by a method of rigorous investigation of the facts. In addition, the historical topics he worked on were linked to his religious background, taking as their starting point the local ecclesiastical and/or university history. When he travelled to Italy in 1926 “on a gratuitous study mission”, what attracted his attention most were the religious houses.

These characteristics, as well as his reluctance to be a theoretical theologian, were revealed by António Vasconcelos in his first major writings, such as his doctoral dissertation on Divórcio (Divorce) (1886) or the biblical-linguistic work for his application to become a teacher, Pluralismo da linguagem (1887), and especially when, at the age of 34 in 1894, he edited his first “historical attempt” as he called it, although it was the work of an “already established historian” in the opinion of Damião Peres in 1940. This is his work Evolução do culto de D. Isabel de Aragão (Evolution of the cult of D. Isabel of Aragon), which was preceded and accompanied by other studies of a historiographical nature as the bibliographic list published in the first volume (1940-1941) of Revista Portuguesa de História clearly shows. Out of some three hundred works of a diverse nature that he published, a total of 223 items were historiographical. Although he was prone to sickness throughout his life, he was a man of “rare energy and tireless activity”, as Mendes dos Remédios described him in 1894.

The figure of the professional historian barely existed at that time in Portugal, or at any rate “the university did not yet train historians” (A. L. Carvalho Homem), and history was studied in the University in the Faculties of Theology and Law in relation to what was pertinent to the their fields of knowledge.

In the Faculty of Theology António Vasconcelos taught various courses, the programmes of which are known. Among these are the programmes for ‘Dogmatic Theology’ (1890), which by necessity dealt with the history of the world and of man, and ‘General Isagogics and Archaeology’ (1902) which was the first part of ‘Biblical Studies’ in which, under Archaeology, he taught topics relating to the history of the material, social, economic, religious and cultural life of the Hebrews. In the second part of ‘Biblical Studies’, the Faculty taught Special Isagogics, hermeneutics and heuristics, methods of interpretation and criticism, all of which Vasconcelos never ceased to adapt to profane texts.

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