The village of Vila do Conde is extremely old, dating back to 953 the first documentary reference to the so-called committee villa, relating to the sale of land today called Monte do Mosteiro to the Guimarães Monastery, and where the first inhabitants are thought to have settled.

There was a count who lived in Azurara, "with the countess, his wife, of whom he had no children." Returning, once, from a long pilgrimage, sick and sensing death, the count vowed to let go of a white dove and , in the place where it landed, found a convent and a village to which it would give its name. The dove flew and landed in Alto de S.João, where the Count ordered the monastery to be built and the settlement around it, the story concludes. For a long time, the Count of this village was D. Mendes Pais Bofinho. In 953, the town appears under the name of Villa de Comite and Rofinho. Other historians claim that Count Belote was presor and grantee of Vila-Condense lands and that the origin of the toponym Villa de Comite comes from this count