The origin of Santa Comba Dão is presumed to go back to the time before the Christian Reconquest. The first documents where its name is referred to are two letters of donation dated 974 and 975. Oveco Garcia, the donator of the first letter, and Nuno Gonçalves, the author of the second one, made a huge donation to the Monastery of Lorvão. In 1102 this religious institution concedes a letter of privilege (“carta de foro”) to the inhabitants of Santa Comba and Treixedo to attract more people to an area that was considerably destroyed during the Reconquest. This was a time of political and administrative instability and the transfer of the lands of Santa Comba from the Monastery of Lorvão to the diocese of Coimbra was probably due to that. This situation didn’t change at least until 1472, when D. Galvão, Bishop of Coimbra, calls himself Count of Santa Comba Dão in a document dated that year.

The king D. Manuel conceded a letter of privilege (“carta de foral”) to Santa Comba Dão on the 20th July 1514 as a result of the letters of privilege reform, which, however, did not go in the sense of the autonomy of the municipalities. The letters of privilege of São João de Areias, Pinheiro de Ázere, Óvoa and Couto do Mosteiro date back to the same period.

In 1836 the municipalities of Óvoa, Couto do Mosteiro and Pinheiro de Ázere were extinguished and integrated as parishes in the municipality of Santa Comba Dão. On the 4th June 1837, Nagosela, which belonged to the municipality of Tondela, was integrated in the parish of Treixedo.
In 1895, the municipality of São João de Areias was extinguished and integrated as a parish in the municipality of Santa Comba Dão.

The Law nº 40/84, 31st December, separated Nagosela from the parish into which it had been integrated in 1837 and created a new parish with its own name.

Other historical contributions

The origin of Santa Comba Dão is lost in the mists of time. It is told that a Benedictine abbess named Columba was martyred during the Arabian invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. It was the year of 982 and that was a time of war between Moors and Christians.

Columba became a saint long before her name changed to Comba. The water of the river Dão made the rest.

But the history of Santa Comba Dão began many centuries before. The names of certain places let us presumed that these lands were inhabited in the Palaeolithic period. Anta, a small place in the left bank of the river Dão, shows us that probability. There are other evidences that some authors tell us about or the information in the Portuguese Medieval Documents that confirm the existence of a “Castro de Comba”. But there are many evidences of Roman occupation: in Patarinho, Óvoa, where probably there was a Roman “villae”, in the Passal of the churches in Couto do Mosteiro or Treixedo where we can still see what remained of Roman ceramics.

Vila de Barba was probably a settlement fortified by the Visigoths that had occupied the existing hill fort and gave it the name of Borga. But the news that we have from the 10th century are accurate: in 974, Oveco Garseani donated what he had in the “villa de Sancta Columba” to the Monastery of Lorvão; in 981, the count of Coimbra, Gonçalo Moniz and his wife, Mamodona donated several villas, among them the villa of Treixedo with its monastery, to the Monastery of Lorvão. The monasterio Sancti Georgi is mentioned in the donation of 985. Thus, it is correct to affirm that Santa Comba was densely populated and had several small monasteries. Through the letters of populating given by the monastery of Lorvão and by the bishop of Coimbra to the people of Santa Comba and Treixedo, we know that this region was devastated during the Reconquest. As time went on, there were some misunderstandings between the monastery of Lorvão and the tenente da terra of Besteiros related to the possession of Santa Comba. But what we know for sure is that the prior of Lorvão had populated, rebuilt and repaired the castro of Santa Comba ‘with the consent of the motherland leader’. This was the count D. Henrique, Lord of Portugal.

Later on there were some misunderstandings between the Coimbra cathedral and the monastery of Lorvão about their possessions in this region. D. Afonso Henriques confirms his parents donations and gives cartas de confirmação de couto to Santa Comba, S. João de Areias and Treixedo.