This chapter offers a definition of a local priest. It explores the normative framework inherited from Late Antiquity that defined their status and regulated their behaviour, but also stresses that the label designates a social fact rather than a specific grade within the Church. To illustrate the diversity that the term encompasses and the methodological challenges that studying these people involves, the chapter offers four case studies of particular local priests in different parts of the former Carolingian empire, from Saxony through to southern France.

The introduction presents the aim and themes of the book within its historiographical framework. It accounts for the relative obscurity of local priests in historical research on the period by examining their role in three influential historiographical approaches and explains the way in which the study of this group of clergymen can improve our understanding of the tenth and early eleventh centuries. As well as setting out the structure of the rest of the book, this introduction provides an overview of the sources examined in the following chapters and briefly discusses the study’s geographical scope.