The Lost Colleges of Coimbra
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
![[Seal of the University of Coimbra]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/University_of_Coimbra_Symbol.gif "Seal of the University of Coimbra.")
16 October 2007 (collegiateway.org) — I confess to being woefully ignorant of the history of higher education in Portugal, but I was most interested to come across a detailed blog post this month from Miguel Pires Prôa on the lost colleges of the University of Coimbra.
Oxford and Cambridge were not the only European universities that had a collegiate organization in centuries past, but wars, revolutions, religious upheavals, and general societal chaos at intervals brought many of the other college systems down. Prôa has put together a wonderful collection of photographs of former college buildings at Coimbra, many of which are still part of the university but which now perform non-collegiate functions.
Perhaps a kind bilingual reader will provide a fluent translation of Prôa’s account that could be posted here on the Collegiate Way.
