This work intends to study the process of constitution of Portuguese Grammar as an autonomous chair in the context of Pombaline Reforms of Minor Studies. It focuses on a set of documents constituted of a Law and Royal Warrant from 1770 that compels the royal professors of Latin grammar to previously teach Portuguese grammar to their pupils. Those documents articulate to the controversy that opposes the Oratorians grammar to that used by Jesuits, refering to the language through which the teaching of Latin should be put trough. That law will be later complemented by the creation of an autonomous chair of Portuguese Grammar and other chairs of modern languages. This process implies a meaningful change in the status of Portuguese, and even Latin itself, within the field of secondary studies, that is an expression of the modernizing dimension of the pombaline reforms, regarding the affirmation of national identity.
pombaline reforms; secondary studies; portuguese teaching; national identity