The Sacred Places and the Lay Communities: Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Late Medieval Sicily

In urban communities of late Medieval Sicily, relations between lay and clerical groups took many different and sometimes surprising forms. Sacred places, like churches, were used not only for religious services but also for a broad range of lay activities such as political disputes and confrontations. Forms of the liturgy influenced civic processions and vice versa. It is even possible to see a secular use of the churches, in which clergy were not present. Even when clerics did not participate in these secular activities, the authority (gravitas) of these places was not diminished. Generally, the local governments resisted any ecclesiastical attempts to control local politics. Using archival records, this paper will focus on the interactions between lay and religious communities in Nicosia, Palermo, Piazza, Polizzi, Salemi, Randazzo in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, examining those societies and their politics of inclusion and exclusion.