A priest administering a parish did not live in the Early Modern times, despite the ideals of thepost-Tridentine Church, in isolation from the surrounding world. Following this initial thesis, thestudy focuses on analysing various factors that integrated the clergy with the rural society, on theone hand, and those that separated it from it, on the other hand. The status of the parish priest as anelite member of rural society is explored both in the context of his exclusive position as a spiritualadministrator and his economic activities and, last but not least, of his relations with his superiors,parishioners and patron.