 At the University of Paris, he completed a doctoral thesis, "Esquisse d'une dialectologie portugaise" (1901), the first important compendium of Portuguese dialects (work that was later continued and advanced by Manuel de Paiva Boléo and Luís Lindley Cintra).He also pioneered the study of Portuguese names with the work "Antroponímia Portuguesa" and studied numismatics and Portuguese philology after his 1887 appointment as curator of the National Library in Lisbon.On the founding of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon in 1911, he was appointed professor of Latin and Medieval French.