Deciding on the Sacred in Registers of Council Proceedings. Cases from the Central Alps

This paper focuses on the actions in the sacred sphere carried out by communities in Central Alps in the late Middle Ages, using Lugano and Bormio as cases of study. The surviving councils’ records as well as the documents drafted by the accounting offices of both burgi highlight concrete practices regarding the administration of church incomes, the care of buildings and sacred furnishings, as well as the organization of religious ceremonies and the dignity of clerics appointed to pastoral care. These responsibilities assumed an increasingly significant role during the fifteenth century, when the sacred sphere appears to have played a key role in representing collective membership. However, an analysis of these practices cannot disregard the specific interactions between the entities involved in the dynamics outlined by the deliberations.