The Parish

The term parish identifies a rural church integrated in an ecclesiastic district.
Parishes were built along streams and main streets in order to be easily reached by the villagers coming from the countryside. The term parish itself comes from the latin plebs, plebis that means plebe, plebs, thus highlighting the function of these religious buildings that offered to the villagers a place of worship nearer than the others located inside the city centre. Parishes assumed a great importance in the villages and became a reference point for the religious life. For many centuries they were the only places in which people could find a baptesimal font and a cemetery. 
The spread of parishes began in the V century, along with Christian religion itself. In 1260, the diocese of Lucca numbered 59 parishes, that septupled after the following division of old ones.