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U.Porto Memory

Teachers and students of the first Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto

Francisco Manuel Homem Cristo

	1860-1943 Journalist, University Teacher and Pamphleteer

Francisco Homem Cristo was born in Aveiro on 8 March 1860, and began his military career as Private, in the Army, at the age of 16. He attended the Military Academy and soon showed his liking for new political ideals. In 1881, he was one of the founders of "A Justiça", a Republican weekly newspaper. He founded his own newspaper called "O Povo de Aveiro", which later changed its name to "O de Aveiro", of which he was the only editor and which helped him disseminate his propaganda and personal quarrels.

In 1882, he rose to the rank of Second-Lieutenant. Later, at the same time that he became a member of the Board of the Portuguese Republican Party, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant of the 2^nd Gunner Regiment, although he gradually clashed with the remaining members on the issue of the 31 January 1891 Coup. Although he was arrested and tried, he was acquitted for moving away from a revolt he felt had no means and conditions to succeed. In 1894, he was even promoted to Army Captain, a rank he maintained until 1908 when he resigned, thus beginning a series of controversies with renowned monarchy defendants on the course of action the country was taking. However, after the establishment of the 1^st Republic, he quarrelled with the Republican leaders, including Guerra Junqueiro and Afonso Costa, and went into voluntary exile with his family to Paris.

During Sidónio Pais’s government, he returned to Portugal and was elected MP for the Timor constituency and was invited by António de José de Almeida to work in the newly created First Faculty of Arts of Porto as Contract Teacher of the 4^th Group (Historical Sciences). On 26 September 1921, at the end of the two-year contract, he was appointed Ordinary Professor (Full Professor in 1926), responsible for the chairs of History of Portugal, Ancient History, Medieval History, Modern and Contemporary History, History of the Discoveries and Portuguese Colonization, General History of Civilization and Universal History.

Between 1923 and 1926 he launched a strong campaign against the First Faculty of Arts of Porto and all its members during the famous and disastrous campaign later known as "Homem Cristo". This controversy was prompted by a disciplinary issue with students, in one of his classes, and soon came to the knowledge of Leonardo Coimbra and other teachers, there being suspicions as to irregularities in the teaching at the institution. Homem Cristo eventually abandoned his duties as a teacher at the Faculty of Arts and became an MP for the Aveiro constituency, and the chairman of the Trade and Industrial Association, of the Autonomous Board of the Ria and the Board of Barra de Aveiro (1925-30).
The first suggestions to close down the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto came to light with this slanderous campaign. After the victory of the Estado Novo [New State], he soon resumed his university teaching career and retired on 26 January 1931, the last year that the Faculty was open after the announcement of its extinction in 1928.

Described by his fellow countrymen as a man of a reactionary and extremely volatile personality, throughout his life he engaged in several controversies with people of different political and cultural beliefs, including his own son, Homem Cristo, an internationally reputed journalist and personal friend of Mussolini. He died in his hometown on 25 February 1943.
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2008)