The parish church (plebs-people) originally referred to the territory where a rural Christian community was located; it had the baptismal font and the cemetery, and there baptism was administered and funeral rites were performed by the college of priests known as the Canonical Chapter. The minor churches that depended on it had their origin linked to the piety of the faithful.
At the head of the Parish Church was the archpriest (later the Parish Priest), who had wide-ranging powers. In addition to ecclesiastical rights, he also had economic rights because the tithes of the dependent churches belonged to the Parish Church. The first transformation of the Parish Church took place when there was a tendency to make every church in a populated area a parish. The first parishes were very poor but around 1000 many of them were rebuilt, enlarged and enriched with decorations.
At the beginning of Christianity, the names of the most common apostles and martyrs such as St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Stephen, etc. were preferred for their dedications. The Byzantines spread the cult of St. Apollinaris and St. Vitalis in our area, while the Lombards preferred St. John the Baptist, St. Michael the Archangel, and St. George. The Franks, on the other hand, preferred St. Martin and St. Remigius.