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Pieve

Rural church in Italy

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In Italy in the Middle Ages, a pieve (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjɛːve], Corsican: [ˈpjɛvɛ]; Latin: plebe; pl.: pievi) was a rural church with a baptistery, which governed smaller churches in the district. Pieve is also an Italian and Corsican term signifying the medieval ecclesiastical/administrative territory of its the mother church. It has thus become a common component of both place names and of the names of churches.

The Italian word pieve is descended from Latin plebs which, after the expansion of Christianity in Italy, was applied to the community of baptized people. Many pievi began to appear in the 5th century, as Christianity expanded in the rural areas outside the main cities. The term plebs was first used to refer to churches in this context near the end of the seventh century.

In the 9th-10th centuries, pievi were often designed with bell towers.

01Churches in Italy

Churches in Italy described as a pieve include:

02Places in Italy

Places in Italy called Pieve include:

Watch videos about PieveExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Pieve, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

  • Piona2.JPG by No machine-readable author provided. Giorces assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain

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