The torrent of 1411
At the end of the spring of 1411, the rush of rainwater was such that it tore off the iron-plated doors of the Almedina gate.
Documented[1]History · Chapter II8th – 14th c.
Almedina, the walled city
← Baixa and the Mondegothe Alta in plan, with the wall and its five gatesnorth ↑
Between 714 and 1064, Coimbra was a frontier city and changed hands four times. A wall along the edge of the hilltop, with five gates, closed it in. What is left is one gate still standing — and the name of what lay inside: Almedina.
How to read the stamps
- Measuredread today by instrument
- Excavatedfound in excavation and published
- Documentedwritten in an ancient source or a record
- Hypothesisproposed by researchers, not proven
- Diagrama drawing to explain, not to the scale of the find
FROM HAND TO HAND
A city on the frontier
Who held Coimbra, from 714 to 1117. Each stretch of the timeline is as long as the time it lasted.
- Muslim rule
- Christian rule
- 1714 or 715
The Muslims take the city
The city is taken by the Muslims of Abd al-Aziz, son of Musa. Arabic sources call it Qulumbriya and say little more about it until 878.
Documented[1] - 2878
Count Hermenegildo
Hermenegildo Guterres takes Coimbra in the reign of Alfonso III of Asturias. Documents begin to call it Conimbria or Colimbria.
Documented[1] - 3987
Almanzor
The year before, he had burned the outskirts. In 987 he returns and enters the city after a two-day siege — a sign that there was already a wall.
Documented[1] - 41064
Ferdinand the Great
The king of León besieges the city; its qaid, Rando, goes over to the Christian side by night. Coimbra becomes the head of a county governed by Sesnando, from Lamego to the sea.
Documented[1] - 51117
A twenty-day siege
Ali ben Yusuf besieges Coimbra for twenty days, with daily assaults. The city does not fall; Dona Teresa is inside.
Documented[1]
THE WALL
A wall around the hilltop
The Alta in plan, with the measured relief. The wall, the gates and what lay inside, step by step — and what is still standing.
- 01
The Alta, seen from above
Walk up from the Baixa to the Alta and, without noticing, you pass where a wall once stood. What remains is a gate, a few towers and a handful of stretches of stone, nearly all of them behind the houses.
The name stayed. Almedina comes from the Arabic al-madina, the city — and in Coimbra it was what lay inside the walls.
- 02
A hilltop ringed by slopes
Without the buildings, the hill is left, in contour lines every five metres. The darkest patch is slope steeper than 24 degrees: it surrounds the hilltop on almost every side.
From the Arco de Almedina, at 29 metres, to the Largo de D. Dinis, where the castle stood, you climb 70 metres. The highest point inside the wall is at 109.
Measured[2] - 03
A wall along the edge of the hilltop
The wall ran along the top of the steepest slopes, where attack was hardest and defence easiest. It enclosed more than twenty hectares.
Who built it is not known. It may be Roman, from the late 3rd or early 4th century; some attribute it to the Muslims, or to Almanzor. What is certain is that by 987 it was already there.
On the east side, between the Couraça dos Apóstolos and the Porta do Sol, its course is still unclear. There the line is dashed.
- 04
Five gates
In the 12th century, the geographer Idrisi writes that Coimbra stands on a hill ringed by good walls, with three gates — these would be the Sol, Belcouce and Almedina gates.
There was a fourth, the gate of Ibn Bodron, a postern onto the river slope, for people on foot only; later it was called the Genicoca gate, and then the Traição gate. The fifth, the Porta Nova, was opened by the canons of Santa Cruz, with the leave of Afonso Henriques.
Documented[1]Diagram - 05
Inside and outside the gates
At the top, the alcazaba: a square some 80 metres on each side, with round towers and its entrance on the east, where the Porta Férrea is today. Sesnando probably made it his home; later it was the royal palace, and today it is the Paço das Escolas.
To the east, the castle, with the keep of Afonso Henriques and the tower of Sancho I, from 1198. Halfway down the slope, the Sé, the cathedral; up to it from the Almedina gate climbed the rua das Tendas, today Quebra-Costas.
Outside, the Baixa was the arrabalde, the suburb, which grew up around the churches — S. Bartolomeu, S. Tiago, Santa Justa — and, from 1131, around the monastery of Santa Cruz. In the first years of the kingdom, Coimbra was its capital.
Documented[1]Diagram - 06
King Fernando doubles the defences
Between 1373 and 1383, King Fernando has the city refortified. On the Baixa side, outside the wall, there now runs a second, lower line, with a ditch in front: the barbican.
The Arco de Almedina you walk through today is the gate of that barbican. The city gate proper is the tower just above, also rebuilt at that time: in 1395 it was still called the new tower.
Documented[1]Diagram - 07
What is still standing
Without war, the wall was no longer of use. Houses were built against it, the towers were leased out, and the colleges of the Alta pulled down stretches of wall and towers — the Jesuits got their licence in 1547.
The castle was almost entirely pulled down in 1773, for an observatory that was never built. The Estrela arch came down in 1778, and its stone was sold; the Traição arch, in 1836. What little was left of the castle disappeared in the building of the University City, in the 20th century.
In black, what remains.
THE ALMEDINA GATE
Two gates in one
Coming up from the Baixa, you pass first through the barbican arch and then the tower, which is the city gate itself. In plan and in section, and the times it was rebuilt.
barbican archtowerQuebra-Costasstraight gate?Rua Ferreira Borgesbarbicanwall
- Before the 12th c.
A straight-through gate
The first gate may have stood in line with Quebra-Costas, which follows the axis of the main street of the Roman city. Beneath it ran the sewer, which in the Middle Ages was called the sota.
Hypothesis[1] - c. 1116 – 1117
A bent entrance
The straight gate is blocked up and another is opened, so that the way into the city makes a bend — harder to force. It is the turn you still make today as you pass the tower.
Hypothesis[1] - c. 1373
The barbican and the arch
King Fernando raises the barbican outside the wall, with a ditch in front. In it opens the arch you go through today, coming from Rua Ferreira Borges. The end of the ditch and the corner of a tower turned up in excavations right next to it.
- Before 1395
The new tower
The tower is rebuilt and raised: a tall passage under a pointed vault, with machicolations for dropping stones, boiling water or oil on anyone forcing the gate. It used to be credited to King Manuel; it is more likely King Fernando’s.
- 1532
Council chamber and chapel
With war gone, the tower gains the balcony that still crowns it. Below, hearings are held; above, the town council meets, and there is a chapel where mass is said before the council goes in.
Documented[1]
Rua Ferreira Borgesarch29 mTorre de Almedinaabove Rua Ferreira BorgespassagesQuebra-Costas · climbs 29 m in 135 mSé Velha10 m
The keys in the dead king’s hand
When Sancho II died in Toledo, in 1248, the alcaide of Coimbra, Martim de Freitas, would not hand over the castle without going there first: he opened the coffin, placed the keys in the king’s hand, took them back, and only then gave them to the new king. And he refused to stay on as alcaide.
Documented[1]Rubbish over the battlements
In 1549, the Jesuits blocked up the battlements of the wall on the Couraça dos Apóstolos: the neighbours had been tipping their rubbish over them into the college grounds. The neighbourhood was left with nowhere to throw it, the slope became the college’s, and there was a riot.
Documented[1]The bookseller who tunnelled under the tower
In 1608, the council complains that the bookseller António Fernandes, who lived by the tower, had been digging tunnels under it to enlarge his house. It had them filled with stone and lime.
Documented[1]AROUND THE WALL
What can still be seen, on foot
From the Arco de Almedina back to the Arco de Almedina, in walking order: up past the Torre de Anto and along the Couraça dos Apóstolos, down by the Couraça de Lisboa.
- 1
Arco e Torre de Almedina
The main gate, and the only one still standing. Past the barbican arch, the passage turns right beneath the tower.
Measured[3] - 2
Paço de Sub-Ripas
The mansion took one of the towers of the wall, the Torre da Contenda, inside itself.
Documented[1] - 3
- 4
Rua do Corpo de Deus, 126
Where the remains of the Porta Nova, the gate of the canons of Santa Cruz, were found.
Documented[1] - 5
Couraça dos Apóstolos
The street runs along the wall. At the end stood the Precónio tower, demolished in 1888; among its stones a Roman inscription to Constantius Chlorus was found.
Documented[1] - 6
Behind the Laboratório Químico
A wall that can still be seen; it is not known whether it is the city wall or the barbican.
Hypothesis[1] - 7
Largo de D. Dinis
Here stood the Porta do Sol and the castle, where the square and the Mathematics Department are today. Nothing is left standing.
Documented[1] - 8
Couraça de Lisboa
On the south side of the street, the wall still runs in several stretches, going down towards Estrela.
Measured[3] - 9
Estrela
The five-sided tower of Sancho I, from 1211, is inside the former Governo Civil building. Nearby was the Porta de Belcouce. From here you return to Almedina along Rua de Fernandes Tomás, whose houses on the west side sit on the wall.
Documented[1]
The Torre de Almedina can be visited.Inside is the Núcleo da Cidade Muralhada, on the walled city.
Opening hours on the City Council website →References
- J. de Alarcão (2008), Coimbra: a montagem do cenário urbano, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra — especially “A Almedina” (pp. 83–134) and “A(s) muralha(s) e o(s) castelo(s) de Coimbra” (pp. 193–267). doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-0416-9
- Direção-Geral do Território, LiDAR digital terrain and surface models, 2 m (2024). cdd.dgterritorio.gov.pt
- Buildings, water and the surviving stretches of the wall (the “Cerca de Coimbra” relation, a national monument): OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). www.openstreetmap.org/relation/18431640
- “Torre onde viveu o poeta António Nobre é agora museu sobre o Fado de Coimbra”, RTP Notícias. www.rtp.pt/noticias/cultura/torre-onde-viveu-o-poeta-antonio-nobre-e-agora-museu-sobre-o-fado-de-coimbra_n841757