Bonds of a religious nature, by which I mean those linking individuals and social groups with particular religious houses and patron saints, were essential for the creating of devotional communities in medieval society. A crucial role in the forming of such communities was played by common emotions and feelings such as devotion, religious affection and attachment, as well as hope for prosperity in temporal and, especially, eternal life. In most cases, however, these bonds were not limited to religious emotions alone. Thus, in order to disambiguate the term ‘community of devotion’, I should clarify that within such communities we could be dealing with very complex, multifaceted ties, as shown for example in the studies of Barbara H. Rosenwein on the circle of people connected to the abbey of St. Peter in Cluny. They included, apart from the strictly religious, significant social and economic components, intertwined within a network of familial, feudal, and political (to refer to German studies on amicitia) relations.

Additionally, in all cases discussed below, the relations, networks, and communities constituting them – notwithstanding their strong, religious component – involved various other realms. The creation of these communities allows for studying the way common emotions of a religious character, the meaning of familial relations, and power and prestige could merge during the period in question. Furthermore, a wide circle of benefactors and other people related to a religious house or those involved in the cult of one patron saint can be seen as an imagined community par excellence. The participation in these communities did not depend on everyday contacts or familiarity with other people involved in the same religious phenomenon, but rather, like in Benedict Anderson's conceptualization of nations as imagined communities, their members would ‘never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each [lived] the image of their communion’. In this sense, although one could assume that a community of monks from a single monastery perceived itself as a ‘real’ community, spending almost each moment of the day with their brothers, even a monastic community would fulfill Anderson's definition to a certain degree.