34 LaCitadeSancta
contado. Before the concentration of ritual activity at the Mother Church in
the 1100 s, there had already grown up, in city and countryside, a network of
baptismal churches, or pievi.^102 Such pievi dot the Italian countryside, but in
only one that I know of, San Giorgio in Brancoli, outside of Lucca, can one
see an intact communal-period baptismal font (fig. 28 ). Around Ferrara, for
example, some thirty-seven pievi existed before 1100.^103 The number of bap-
tismal churches in the valley of the Po increased rapidly after 1100 , and
scholars have identified some four hundred.^104 The pievi of Italy north of
Umbria had a nearly identical form and followed similar development.^105 In
the tithe lists for Liguria, for example, the typical rural baptismal church was
located in a population center. It was a collegiate church, that is, one staffed
by an archpriest and several deacons. There might also have been one or
more assistant priests.^106 Administratively, the archpriest had control over
priests and clerics staffing the network of chapels (cappelle) surrounding the
population center.^107 Baptisms and major feasts were conducted at the bap-
tismal church, and the clergy and people of the chapels attended them.^108
Chaplains of the subordinate chapels were appointed from there, with the
archpriest, orpievano,functioning something like the rural deans of contem-
porary England. Unlike the appointed subordinate chaplains, the pievano
was elected by the people of the baptismal church, although the bishop did
the ordination and actual appointment.^109 At Busto Arsizio in the diocese of
Novara, which appears earlier merely as a ‘‘locus,’’ a chapel was already in
place in the 1100 s. By 1212 , the chapel was a pieve, with baptismal font and
the right to elect the pievano. In 1343 , the parish was divided and a second
church built.^110 Pievi also served as secular administrative districts.^111 This
administrative identification mirrored the popular view, according to which
- On the pieve, see P. Zerbi, ‘‘Conclusione,’’Pievi e parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., 2 : 1200 – 202 ; for
bibliography to 1988 , see L. Mascanzoni, ‘‘Saggio di bibliografia storica,’’Pievi e parrocchie in Italiai: Italia
settentrionale,ed. A. Vasina (Bologna: n.p., 1988 ), esp. 285 – 97. On pievi in the Veronese contado, see
Giuseppe Forchielli,La pieve rurale: Ricerche sulla storia della costituzione della Chiesa in Italia e particolarmente nel
Veronese(Bologna: Zanichelli, 1938 ), 185 – 203. - Samaritani, ‘‘Circoscrizioni,’’ 69 – 176 , esp. 69 – 138.
- Giancarlo Andenna, ‘‘Alcune osservazioni sulla pieve lombarda traxiiiexvsecolo,’’Pievi e
parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., 2 : 682 ; Augusto Vasina, ‘‘Pievi e parrocchie in Emilia-Romagna dalxiiialxv
secolo,’’ ibid., 728. - Cinzio Violante, ‘‘Presentazione delle relazioni regionali dell’Italia centrale,’’Pievi e parrocchie,
ed. Erba et al., 2 : 753. - Sabatino Ferrali, ‘‘Pievi e clero plebano in diocesi di Pistoia,’’Bullettino storico pistoiese, 3 d ser., 8
( 1973 ): 40 , for Pistoia. - Geo Pistarino, ‘‘Diocesi, pievi, e parrocchie nella Liguria medievale (secolixii–xv),’’Pievi e
parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., 2 : 637. - See Andenna, ‘‘Alcune osservazioni,’’ 684 , on Lombardy.
- Brentano,Two Churches, 68 – 70 , examines pievi in the Lucchese contado. Documents on rural
pievi are edited inLa parrocchia studiata nei documenti lucchesi dei secoliviii–xiii,Analecta Gregoriana 47
(Rome: Gregoriana, 1948 ). - Andenna, ‘‘Alcune osservazioni,’’ 690.
- Pistarino, ‘‘Diocesi,’’ 653 , on Liguria; for another example, see Parma Stat.ii( 1266 ), 181 , where
thelociof the contado are also called interchangeably ‘‘plebatus’’ or ‘‘ecclesiae baptismales.’’