Qrendi : reconstructing the history of a rural parish from the requests of its parishioners

Abstract

On 28 February 1618, while on a pastoral visitation of the villages of Qrendi, Manin and Leo, Bishop Balthasar Cagliares, dismembered the said territory from the parish of Żurrieq, thus establishing a new parish, citing as was customary the considerable distance that separated this rural community from the mother parish, which created great difficulty for the faithful, particularly the wives, virgins and the elderly to follow the ecclesiastical offices and thus fulfil their spiritual obligations. It is in this light that Frans Ciappara asserted that the lay faithful regarded the parish “as their own”, an institution with which they identified, and in which they were inherently rooted. The parish, centred on the parish church itself and extending to its filial churches, materially defined its members, cementing them into a socially coherent group, and this notwithstanding the social, cultural and gender differentiation that existed within it. For a long time, the Maltese have defined themselves in terms of their patron saints, cementing the parishioners into a socially identifiable group, often in opposition to neighbouring parishes. [excerpt]