[2] It is the most populated parish in the Municipality of Coimbra, and among the most densely inhabited in the country outside of Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas.

Even by 1064, before the creation of the Kingdom of Portugal (1143), the region of Olivais was pasturelands interspersed by parcels where the local settlers cultivated vineyards and olive orchards, in addition to vegetable gardens and fruit trees, while the remaining lands were still forested (such Malheiros, Tovins, Picoto, Dianteiro and Rocha Nova).

[3] The beginnings of the parish occurred in the 13th century (around 1210), when D. Sancha (daughter of King Sancho I) founded the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Celas, in the locality of Vimarães, under administration of friars of the Order of Saint Bernard.

A few years later (between 1217 and 1218), Queen Urraca (wife of Afonso II) donated a small chapel on a hill of olive groves to the first Franciscan friars arriving into Portugal, which they transformed into a humble hermitage dedicated to Saint Anthony the Great.

[3]On the night of 10–11 November 1851, a fire gutted the cloister, dormitory and other dependencies of the convent (now the churchyard and cemetery of the current structure).

Olviais included the largest of these early settlements, established from the remnants of São Pedro and clergy of Torres.