ABSTRACT
For the social-religious historian the parish would seem an obvious unit of social organisation, and a manageable category for an analysis of society in hierarchies. In a developed Christian society the parish might be expected to be the centre of social as well as strictly religious activity and organisation. In practice the situation in Italy during our period was variable in time and place. Generally the ‘parish’ became a more significant social unit through the period, particularly as and when Catholic reformers made an impact from the sixteenth century; and the parish church physically became more important in the lives of individuals – even if some social activities of a dubious religious nature were barred from the church interior.1
