António Vasconcelos was a Doctor of Theology (1886) and a Doctor of Letters (1916) of the University of Coimbra, a lay priest and a “liturgist, philologist, canonist, archaeologist and historian” as it says on the engraved memorial tablet placed in 1944 on the house where he was born. He was a notable personality in the diocese and at the University of Coimbra, where he taught from 1887 to 1930, first in the Faculty of Theology and then, when this closed down, in the Faculty of Letters where he became Emeritus Professor.

His parents were Serafim Garcia Ribeiro (1823-1912) and Maria José Cândida Coelho Freire de Faria da Cunha e Vasconcelos (1825-1865). His father, who married twice, had known Coimbra in his youth and still had old friends there in 1850 and 1867 who are mentioned in his son’s “memoirs”. His father’s older brother, Dionísio Garcia Ribeiro (1821-1886), had lived in Coimbra, entering the Seminary in 1840 and frequenting the Ecclesiastical Course in the Faculty of Theology. He was ordained a priest in 1844. Serafim though remained in São Paio de Gramaços (Oliveira do Hospital) where he devoted his time to managing his farms. His brother, Father Dionísio, “a son of the leading family in the area”, had “sufficient patrimonial goods to support him”, as his own nephew mentioned, thus identifying his social position. He added that his paternal grandfather had been “a great administrator and an active farmer”, from whom he had most likely inherited his own qualities as an organizer and man of action. What is more, the witnesses who were heard before the ceremony at which Father Dionísio took Holy Orders made it clear that both his parents and grandparents “served the honourable employments of the state and public order” and were a respectable middle-class family.

António Vasconcelos lost his mother when he was five years old and owed “his education and social situation” to his uncle, a debt he explicitly recognised throughout his work in multiple references that showed his deep gratitude. In fact, Father Dionísio moved to the parish of São Paio de Gramaços in 1851 shortly after his brother became a widower. There he undertook a large amount of pastoral and pedagogic work. When António was 8 or 9 years old, his uncle Dionísio, “wishing to personally direct the literary education of his nephew in Coimbra” as he himself put it, applied to move to the parish church of São Martinho do Bispo near Coimbra. He was appointed to the parish in 1869 and lived there until his death in 1886, ending up as an archpriest and later as an archdeacon.

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