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Based on a set of Royal Letters from the "Chartularium Universitatis Portugalensis" (1996), this article aimed to reflect on the Portuguese University in the reign of King Afonso IV (1291, 1325-1357)4 and his governmental actions in favor of investment in the protection, maintenance and development of the General Study, founded by King Dinis around 1290 in Lisbon. Inserted in the field of History of Education, the bibliographic and documentary research was based on the theoretical principles of Social History and the concept of long duration, particularly in the formulations of Bloch (2001). The analysis, articulated with the political context of the time, showed that the university institution enabled a more centralized reign, especially due to the monarchical legislative corpus focused on social organization. The General Study subsidized the strengthening of royal authority, but the government of King Afonso IV that gave the Portuguese mentality of the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries new perspectives on society and the leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]