................................
The next generation opened with Pascoal de Melo Freire (1738–1798), considered one of the founders of history of law in Portugal, with António Caetano do Amaral (1747–1819) following the same path by studying the history of legislation, with excursions into medieval patristics. In the meantime, João Pedro Ribeiro (1758–1839) came to prominence as the founder of the discipline of palaeography and diplomatics, which he taught, making a notable contribution to the development of subsequent 19th-century historical works. The history of diplomacy also developed from the foundational works of the 2nd Viscount of Santarém, D. Manuel Francisco Mesquita de Macedo Leitão e Carvalhosa (1791–1856), whose political preferences aligned with a faction of Miguelism are also well known. In the field of history of law and legislation, the works of Manuel António Coelho da Rocha (1793–1850) are also noteworthy, as well as the importance of Simão José da Luz Soriano (1802–1891), who became something of an unofficial historian of the emerging liberal regime. Among his vast body of work, the História do Cerco do Porto [History of the Siege of Porto](1846–1849), in two volumes, and the exhaustive História da Guerra Civil e do Estabelecimento do Governo Parlamentar em Portugal [History of the Civil War and the Establishment of Parliamentary Government in Portugal] (1866–1890), in 17 extensive volumes, among others, are worthy of mention, with the latter serving as an authentic history of Portugal given the wide chronological scope covered, despite its title. These were the times of the great syntheses of national history.
It was not long before the 19th century bequeathed us with historians who followed this movement at a domestic level. Two of the main ideologues of political liberalism in Portugal helped establish the image of the struggles between the liberals and Miguelists, as well as the emerging revolutionary regime. Almeida Garrett (1799–1854) and Alexandre Herculano (1810–1877) contributed decisively to determining an interpretation of the actions of the victors of the civil war and the regime to which they gave rise.
