Coímbra

Coimbra

Camino Portugués · Camino Portugués de la Costa

Distrito de CoímbraPortugal

Here Camino Portugués and Camino Portugués de la Costa converge. It is one of the points where the pilgrim shares the way with those arriving by another route.

From pre-Roman Aeminium, a Lusitanian word of opaque meaning (onomasts propose a root for 'height, hill', without firm parallels), replaced in Roman times by Conimbriga — a compound with the Celtic suffix -briga, 'fortified city'.

Coímbra tells a rare story: the modern city bears the name of another one that no longer exists. The settlement on this hill was pre-Roman and was called Aeminium, a Lusitanian word whose precise meaning has been lost. After the Roman conquest, the administrators moved the provincial centre sixteen kilometres south and founded ex novo the city of Conimbriga — second element -briga, a Celtic suffix for 'fortified city' the pilgrim recognises from Flaviobriga (Castro Urdiales), Lacobriga or Mirobriga. When the Suebi razed Conimbriga in 468, the survivors —⁠and the episcopal seat⁠— took refuge in old Aeminium on top of the hill… and they took the name with them. Aeminium stopped being called that. Portuguese phonetics did the rest: loss of the intervocalic -n- (parallel to old Galician luna → lúa), vowel assimilation, Conimbriga → Conimbria → Colimbria → Coímbra. The University of Coímbra, founded in 1290 and active ever since, today occupies the hill of old Aeminium.

Evolution of the name

  1. Aeminium pre-Roman (lusitano) before the 1st century BC
  2. Conimbriga Latin 1st — 5th century
  3. Conimbria late Latin 6th — 9th century
  4. Colimbria Galician-Portuguese Romance 10th — 12th century
  5. Coímbra modern Portuguese from the 13th century

Reflections, to the letter

Take the bus from Coímbra to the ruins of Conimbriga, sixteen kilometres south. Walk along the cardo maximus of the dead city and over the mosaics of the Casa dos Repuxos. The name you tread on down there is the one you take back with you — when the Suebi razed Conimbriga, the survivors took the toponym north and abandoned the stones.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Assimilation
A phonetic change by which one sound becomes more similar to an adjacent one.
Intervocalic
A consonant placed between two vowels; in Castilian it tends to drop or voice as the word evolves.
Pre-Roman
Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
Onomatologist
A specialist in onomastics, the linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons (anthroponyms), places (toponyms) and institutions.

Sources

  • Almeida, F. de — Ruínas de Conimbriga (Coímbra: Junta de Província da Beira Litoral, 1956)
  • Coromines, J. — Onomasticon Cataloniae (vol. III, s.v. Coïmbra)
  • Mañanes, T. — Lápidas y epígrafes romanos de Conimbriga (1981)

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Camino Portugués

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. São João da Madeira
  3. Oliveira de Azeméis
  4. Albergaria-a-Velha
  5. Águeda
  6. Anadia
  7. Mealhada
  8. Coímbra
  9. Condeixa-a-Nova
  10. Conímbriga
  11. Rabaçal
  12. Ansião
  13. Alvaiázere
  14. Tomar
  15. ··· toward the start