pieve

Forms

pieve f (plural pievi)^[1] Old forms include pleve, pieva and pive.^[2][3] The word is Venetian piove, Friulian plef and Ladin plief.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plebs (“the common people”), from its accusative.^[6][4][1] In Christian Latin the word came to mean a group of the faithful and then a country parish.^[6][7][8] plebe is the learned doublet of the same Latin word.^[6][1][7]

Aebischer found that plebs in the sense of a church district is securely recorded only from the 9th century, at a council held in Rome, and later at Trento and in imperial diplomas for Italy.^[6] In Tuscany it is found in the oldest Lombard documents from the mid-7th century, both for the community of the faithful and for a church territory, and in Romagna from the late 8th century.^[6][4] The word belongs to the area of Frankish law: it is unknown in the Iberian Peninsula and in Italy south of Tuscany.^[5][8] From the 9th century it gave way to Latin parochia.^[5][8] Beyond Italy it passed into Welsh plwyf.^[5][8] The derivative Medieval Latin plebanus is recorded from 819 and gave pievano.^[6]

DEI calls the link between the Latin word and Ancient Greek πληθύς (plēthús, “multitude”) uncertain, and suggests the word may be a relic of a pre-Indo-European language.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese document of 1231–1232.^[2] DELI has the variant pleve at Trisigal in 1253, and a Florentine text of 1278–1279 with the sense of a parish church on which other churches depended.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the pieve was a rural church district run by a priest called the pievano, centred on a church with a baptistery on which smaller churches and chapels depended.^[2][3] The word also meant that church building itself, and the parish as a legal owner of land.^[2] In Corsica it was also a civil district matching the church district.^[2] The Novellino tells of a parish priest accused of ruling his pieve badly because of women.^[3]

The system belonged to central and northern Italy, while the south had parishes instead.^[3][9] The word is no longer used for a church district today, but it lives on in many place names, such as Pieve di Cadore and Città della Pieve.^[9][10][11]

Timeline

• 819 – Medieval Latin plebanus is recorded.^[6]
• 1231–1232 – A Sienese document has pieve.^[2]
• 1253 – The variant pleve is recorded at Trisigal.^[6][12]
• 1278–1279 – A Florentine text uses the word for a mother church.^[6][3]
• 1300s – The sense “jurisdiction of the pievano” appears.^[6][8]
• 1710 – Pievania is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) In medieval central and northern Italy, a rural church with a baptistery at the head of a minor church district, on which other churches and chapels depended; later replaced by the parrocchia, the parish.^[12][10][9]
2. (historical) The faithful belonging to such a church.^[12][10][9]
3. (historical) The territory under the jurisdiction of a pievano.^[12][11][2]
4. (uncommon) A country parish church.^[7][9]

Word family

• pievano
• pievania
• piovano
• piviere

Related words

• plebe
• Latin plebs

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2914
9. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET