................................
THE TEAM
CONTACT
Although there was no local model of encouragement, the Coimbra History Cluster was extremely active in this area in the 1940s, inviting foreign experts to give lectures and lessons on the subject, publishing some of their results, or hosting works, among the publications of the IEH, of a clearly economic nature, as well as publishing collaboration in the RPH of the same nature.
The project for the economic history courses by foreign teachers, to be taught on an annual basis when possible, and initially focusing on Portugal's medieval trade relations with Flanders, emerged in 1939, instigated by Paulo Merêa and implemented by T. Soares, being scheduled to begin in 1940, the year of the centenary. The arrival of Professor Charles Verlinden (1907-1996), from the University of Ghent, was one of the initial aims, but the invasion of Belgium in 1940 delayed his arrival until after the end of the war, and he remained in Coimbra for continuous periods in the academic years 1946-1947 and 1948-1949. Yves Renouard (1908-1965), who had recently published Les hommes d'affaires italiens au Moyen Âge, also lectured to students (and even outside the University) on his specialisation area for a fortnight in March 1949 and again in 1950.
The course given by Verlinden in the academic year 1946-1947 was, however, still of an introductory nature to Economic History, clearly showing the state of the subject as far as research and teaching were concerned in Coimbra. It was, in fact, geared towards «de permettre aux étudiants d'apprendre à penser économiquement à propos du passé» (Introduction à l´Histoire Économique, 1948, p. 7). Nine chapters of lessons and a document appendix of 38 texts by important authors were a good starting point to address the problematic, which was deepened in the first term of the academic year1948-1949, with particular emphasis on Portuguese trade relations in the Middle Ages.
The lack of research on Economic History at FLUC and the opposition observed in Lisbon to Virgínia Rau's continuators contributed to the delayed emergence of the «narrative history eclipse». In fact, as highlighted by Paul Ricoeur, «the methodology of economic history consisted more in a continuity with March Bloch and Lucien Febvre's anti-positivist combat than in a rift. Indeed, what the founders of the Annales school had wished to combat was, in the first place, the fascination with the single, unrepeatable fact» (Temps et récit, vol. I, 1983, p. 193).
