The craftsmen of Portugal encapsulate a vivid portrait of the urban dynamics of the Middle Ages and ancien régime embodying both urban sensibilities and contemporary social practices. The workers in the manufacturing industries of leather, metal, textiles, and pottery occupied a large part of medieval Coimbra, developed business networks, and fostered important social and economic dynamics. Craftsmen will be examined as holders of capital and both movable and immovable property, as well as usufructuaries of ecclesiastical property in Coimbra, both in the peri-urban ring and in the hinterland. The following questions will be posed: What property did they hold? Where was it located? How did they purchase or inherit it? How did they exploit it? How did they make it profitable? To whom did they transfer it? In answering these questions, the craftsmen of Coimbra and its role in the relationship between city and countryside will be described. Rather than draw definite conclusions, the goal is to achieve a broad base of knowledge that allows a comparison between Coimbra and other cities, where craftsmen played an equally important role.

With this article, we pretend to conduct an analysis about the city toponymy of the Portuguese Middle Ages, from the more detailed study of the reality of Coimbra, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Based on a body of documents consisting on documents written by ecclesiastical, district and royal institutions, chronologically marked out between the fourteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century, this work seeks to identify the main topographic landmarks, either natural or built, that stood out in the urban landscape. In the same way, wishes to emphasize the way the medieval toponymy gives us echoes from the population that gave life to the city in the centuries that we now study, but also the people who, protagonists of previous occupations, left until late a distinctive stamp in the urbanism of Coimbra. Finally, this study aims a better comprehension of the relationship that was established between the city inhabitant and the urban space. For a better articulation of these issues, this article is divided in four themes highlighted by the toponymy in review: buildings and urban constructions; landscapes and natural features; craft and commercial activities and other professions; religious and foreign minorities.