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THE TEAM
CONTACT
It is not surprising that Herculano jubilantly welcomed the path taken by the professor from Coimbra, as "his history is that of social facts, of the organisation and development of this moral body called the Portuguese nation." Despite Herculano's sporadic contributions to the evolution of legal historiography, it was in the realm of methods and conceptions of a critical and philosophical history that his performance assumed such significance that it could not be ignored by the future. From his position of authority, the romantic patriarch effectively issued a death certificate to history composed of chronologies, lineages, and battles, in essence, to a history without scientific attestation, lacking the powerful heuristic foundation of sources.
Returning now to the legal historiography of the 19th century, let us revisit the University to focus on the path offered to the history of law by the successive 19th-century reforms. The recent Faculty of Law was not so young as to forget the past. In 1836, the first discipline of the course was named "General History of Jurisprudence, and the particular of Roman, Canon, and National Law." It underwent Cabral's public instruction reform without a new name. In line with Article 98, sole paragraph of the Decree of 20 September 1844, the distribution of disciplines in the Faculty of Law would be made "by its Council, as may best serve the service and progress of teaching." Unlike other schools, the dictatorial law assumed a unique respect for the autonomy of the Faculty of Law. Using this prerogative, after a long period of reflection, a study plan was established, whose changes did not affect the historical discipline. Influenced by foreign ideas, the concept of introducing a "Legal Encyclopaedia" discipline emerged. At a Congregation meeting on 29 July 1854, Nunes de Carvalho requested that "the creation of a new discipline, that would be preliminary to all the study of Law, as practiced in other Universities" be considered. Months later, Forjaz de Sampaio seconded the proposal. It prevailed in 1855, resulting in the division of our discipline into "History of Law and Legal Encyclopaedia," with the latter taking the place of the particular history of Roman law in the first discipline of the course.
