a plucky little Lutheran town

Some things I learned from

Trarbach in alter Zeit
by Ernst Schütz
Traben-Trarbach 1909

In my recent investigations about the Ebner ancestors, and separately, the church inspector Johann Conon, I found valuable information in this history of the town of Trarbach, which is available online. As it doesn't have an index and I only discovered the search function belatedly, I read most of it to make sure I didn't miss any further clues to the lives of the people I was after. Although I moaned about the author's harsh treatment of Conon, the rest of the book turned out to be the fascinating story of a plucky little town full of Lutheran people surviving in extremely hard times, including the Thirty-Years' War as well as additional periods of occupation by hostile troups. The time frame is wisely chosen from the arrival of the Reformation in 1557 (which fuelled some of the subsequent wars) to the destruction of the Grevenburg in 1734, whose strategic importance had brought the town more grief than anything else in the previous centuries.

Trarbach - engraving by Bodenehr from 1704.
Source: Wikipedia

Funnily enough, the German Wikipedia entry of the town (now merged with Traben to form Traben-Trarbach) practically skips this part of its history, so I'll outline a chronology here with a special attention to the school where the Ebners taught for 45 years:

1557 the Reformation started in the Upper County of Sponheim (German: Hintere Grafschaft Sponheim; see map below) by virtue of a letter from the Duke of Simmern-Palatinate-Sponheim to his Oberamtmann (chief of the administration) at Trarbach, demanding the introduction of protestant practices in the parishes of the county. This happened in accordance with the Augsburg Settlement of 1555 which decreed that the the rulers determine the religion of their subjects (Cuius regio eius religio). However, the Upper County of Sponheim happened to have two rulers of different faiths. Friedrich der Fromme had just inherited the dukedom on the 18th of May 1557. Not wasting any time, on the 16th of July he signed that letter to his administrator in Trarbach. It seems that the other (the Markgraf von Baden) wasn't given much time to protest before the letter went off, but didn't block the introduction of Lutheran practice when it happened.

The five green patches constitute the Upper County of Sponheim - how this splatter survived as a political unit jointly ruled by two different overlords for three centuries is completely beyond me.
Source: Wikipedia / By Lencer - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The very Catholic holiday of Fronleichnam was celebrated at Trarbach for the last time in 1557, and Christmas of the same year saw the first Lutheran Abendmahl. In 1560, an official delegation visited all the parishes of the district to see whether the priests in place were able and willing to follow the new rules, and to replace them if they failed the test. The visitation protocols are extremely useful resources giving insights into the lives of people at the time of the Reformation.

In 1571, Heinrich Henning, the first Lutheran vicar of the town, suggested setting up a high school for the district. As it happens, the regional asylum for the paupers had just been moved to nearby Enkirch because unruly residents there might disturb services at the church next door. The building was adapted for use as the school (see photos here and here).

In 1574 The Lateinschule was founded with two classes then expanded to three with a total of 78 pupils: The Infima was an elementary school for boys and girls, the Secunda a highschool for boys only teaching Latin and a bit of Greek, and the Prima prepared pupils for university with more Latin and Greek along with philosophy. The school was financed in part from the income of nearby Wolf monastery and was free of charge for the pupils, although donations were encouraged. Three quarters of the pupils came from the town itself, which then had between 1,000 and 1,200 residents, the others from Traben, Enkirch, or further afield.

Meanwhile, there was trouble brewing at the church next door. In 1572 Johann Conon came to the town as the Diakon (assistant priest). By 1574, he has written a lengthy letter of complaint to the authorities about the Calvinist tendencies of vicar Henning, in joint enterprise with the Diakon of Enkirch who had similar concerns about the vicar there. Both vicars were summoned to court and found lacking in Lutheran purity, and thus dismissed. During the next Visitation, the people of Trarbach, who were fond of Henning, took their revenge on Conon and made multiple accusations against him. He was moved to become the vicar of the more remote town of Dill, but soon after moved on to the court at Birkenfeld where he became court priest and Inspector of the entire Oberamt, officially charged with sniffing out Calvinists everywhere. The widening rift between Lutherans and Calvinists was a big issue at that point. As Lower Sponheim was Calvinist, clergymen of that inclination could find jobs there, while places like Trarbach offered refuge to those evicted for being Lutheran.

From September 1576 and well into 1577 the plague hit the town.

In 1583 the plague returned.

In 1584, the Palatinate share of the rule over Upper County of Sponheim fell to the Duke Charles of Birkenfeld, as he came of age. This is significant for our Lutheran little town, as much of the rest of the Palatinate drifted towards the Calvinist creed and the divisions between both camps were deepening. He still had to contend with the Catholic co-rulers in Baden.

1589 Funding disputes led to the school being scaled down to an ordinary one-class town school, and the Rektor (head of school and teacher of the final class) being dismissed.

By 1591 the authorities agreed to reinstate the school in its old form and reinstall the old Rektor.

In 1597/98 the plague hit the town for the third time.

1618-1648 During the Thirty Years' War, the town changed hands several times. The Swedes finally arriving were seen as liberators as they were protestants like the townspeople.

On 1.1.1649 the Lateinschule relaunched with Nikolaus Klingler as Rektor, Markus Lehmann as Konrektor and Daniel Rima as the schoolmaster for the Infima.

In 1654, Johann Hofmann arrived at the school as the new Rektor. His memoir Trorbachische Ehre-Säul published in 1669 (after retiring in 1667) describes the lives of the people in the town in great detail, including for instance, how the local wine was produced, and what other professions were present. Coming from another wine-growing region (Baden), Hofmann was intrigued by the cultural differences he discovered when he arrived in the Mosel valley. In 1968 a facsimile edition of the book was published ahead of its 300th anniversary. You can read it online here. The glorious title of the book in full: "Trorbachische Ehren-Säul: oder geschichtliche Beschreibung förderst der Fürstl. Spanheymischen Ober-Amts-Statt Trorbach an der Mosel, theils auch anderer Ohrt in derselben Gegend, sonderlich des dahin verbürgerten Haupt-fleckens Traben".

In 1675, Johann Jacob Ebner arrived at the Lateinschule where he taught the younger pupils at first in his dual role as Kantor and Präzeptor. He became Konrektor in 1686.

In 1682, only a century after the Catholic parts of the world, the Upper County of Sponheim switched to the Gregorian calendar.

1683-1697 French occupation under the Reunions policy of Louis XIV. He instructed Vauban to build a massive fortress, Montroyal, on the other side of the river, overlooking Traben. It wasn't completely finished yet when the peace treaty of Rijswijk of 1697 required its destruction.

1685-1703 The tenure of Johann Conrad Arnoldi as Rektor gave the school some much-needed stability in turbulent times. Born at Trarbach, Arnoldi was the son of a previous Rektor and an alumnus of the school himself. He went on to become quite famous as a professor at Giessen and has a detailed Wikipedia entry.

In the war of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the French took the Grevenburg again, but were displaced in 1704 by Protestant troups from Hessen, who handed it over to a Dutch unit.

In 1708, Philipp Nikolaus Ebner took over the position of Konrektor at the Lateinschule as his father retired.

The peace treaty of 1714 had an unfortunate side effect for the people of Trarbach, as it gave the Archbishop Elector of Trier the right to station troops at Grevenburg. As the castle was damaged to the degree to make it practically uninhabitable, he forced the town to accommodate his soldiers. Again, the Lutheran town was under Catholic occupation and had to feed its enemies.

This state of affairs lasted beyond the departure of Philipp Nikolaus Ebner to the Hunsrück village of Alterkülz in 1720. I imagine that the situation did make the town a less attractive place to live, so the move to the vicarage of Alterkülz was likely welcome, and the retired Konrektor Johann Jakob Ebner came along too.

In 1734, during the war of the Polish Succession, the Grevenburg was besieged again and practically destroyed. It was never rebuilt and the town had a much happier and more peaceful life without any strategically important fortification in its vicinity.