1. Historical study of the German Enlightenment originated with Protestant historians, which led to an emphasis on Protestant culture and institutions. Troeltsch, Ernst, “Aufklärung,” in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1897), 225–41Google Scholar, for instance, characterized the Enlightenment as a secularizing movement, in which institutions of culture and education achieved autonomy from theological and ecclesiastical authority. Nineteenth-century Catholic historians held a similar view, leading them to condemn the Enlightenment rather than to study it.

2. Reill, Peter Hanns, The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism (Berkeley, 1975), 6.Google Scholar

3. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 1: Vom Feudalismus des Alten Reiches bis zur Defensiven Modernisierung der Reformära 1700–1815 (Munich, 1987), 270–81Google Scholar, acknowledges that the Enlightenment did have some impact in Catholic Germany, particularly in the fight against “superstition” and institutional abuses, but argues that real “regeneration” of German Catholicism did not come until after the shock of secularization in 1803. Wehler offers the general assessment that Protestantism was historically more important than Catholicism in the four centuries after 1517 in the areas of culture, literature, science, statecraft, economy, and education. Merker, Nicolao, Die Aufklärung in Deutschland, trans. Doucet-Rosenstein, Diane (Munich, 1982)Google Scholar, another general survey of the period, virtually ignores the Catholic Enlightenment.

4. Blanning, T.C.W., Reform and Revolution in Mainz 1743–1803 (Cambridge, 1974)Google Scholar; Baumgartner, Konrad, Die Seelsorge im Bistum Passau zwischen Barocker Tradition, Aufklärung und Restauration (St. Ottilien, 1975)Google Scholar; Braubach, Max, Kurköln: Gestalten und Ereignisse aus zwei Jahrhunderten rheinischer Geschichte (Münster, 1949)Google Scholar and Diplomatic und geistiges Leben im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert: Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Bonn, 1969)Google Scholar; Hammerstein, Notker, Aufklärung und katholisches Reich: Untersuchung zur Universitätsreform und Politik in den katholischen Territorien des Heiligen Römischen Reiches der deutschen Nation im 18. Jahrhundert (West Berlin, 1977)Google Scholar; Haass, Robert, Die geistige Haltung der katholischen Universitäten Deutschlands im 18. Jahrhundert (Freiburg i.Br., 1952).Google Scholar

5. Blanning, T.C.W., “The Enlightenment in Catholic Germany,” in Porter, R. and Teich, M., eds., The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge, 1981), 118–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Möller, Horst, Vernunft und Kritik: Deutsche Aufklärung im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt a.M., 1986).Google Scholar Möller's synthetic work summarizes the current state of research on the Catholic Enlightenment and is one of the few general studies to consider the movement on an even footing with its Protestant counterpart.

6. On the concept of “confessionalization” see Zeeden, Ernst Walter, Konfessionsbildung: Studien zur Reformation, Gegenreformation und katholischen Reform (Stuttgart, 1985).Google Scholar

7. See , J. A. and Eichelsbacher, R., Die Volksschule im unterfränkischen Raum von Karl dem Grossen bis auf den heutigen Tag und der Neubau im 18. Jahrhundert (Würzburg, 1967), 19–24Google Scholar, for Würzburg schools under Julius Echter. On Julius Echter's life, see Merzbacher, Friedrich, Julius Echter und seine Zeit (Würzburg, 1932)Google Scholar; and Wendehorst, Alfred, Das Bistum Würzburg: Teil 3: Die Bischofsreihe von 1455 bis 1617 (Würzburg, 1978), 162–238.Google Scholar

8. Numerous editions and variations of the original Canisius catechism appeared throughout Catholic Germany from the Latin original in 1555 until replacement texts finally took over early in the nineteenth century. For Canisius in the Würzburg parish schools, see Büttner, Wilhelm, “Die Würzburger Diözesan-Katechismen: Zur Einführung des neuen Katechismus im Bistum Würzburg,” Die Geistlichen Schule: Pädagogische Studien und Mitteilungen 3 (1912): 274.Google Scholar For a general view of the parallel efforts at confessionalization among Lutherans, see Strauss, Gerald, Luther's House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (Baltimore, 1978).Google Scholar

9. This visitation was of the Würzburg Landkapitel Gerolzhofen, cited in Brander, Vitus, “Fürstbischof Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn und das Schulwesen im Hochstift Würzburg,” Die Christliche Schule: Pädagogische Studien und Mitteilungen 8 (1917): 516–18.Google Scholar

10. The repetition of ordinances calling for improved school attendance, stretching back to Julius Echter's time, attest to the ineffectiveness of the measures.

11. See Konrad, Nikolaus, Franz Ludwig Von Erthal: Ein Organisator der Volksschule der AufKlärung (Düsseldorf, 1932), 69Google Scholar; and Diözesansarchiv Würzburg, Pfarreiakten für Retzbach, K. 1. According to one report in the early 1780s, out of 534 teachers surveyed, 425 had incomes under 100 gulden, or less than one-fifth the income of a university professor. In the parish of Retzbach in 1666, for instance, the schoolmaster received 13 fl., plus corn and wood, from the town, about 5 fl. from the parish, and less than one-half gulden from the school tax (Schulgeld) paid directly by parents. He also received 7 fl. for secretarial duties.

12. For a discussion of the social and economic place of the early modern schoolmaster in local communities, see LaVopa, Anthony J., Prussian Schoolteachers: Profession and Office, 1763–1848 (Chapel Hill, 1980).Google Scholar

13. The dual nature of the prince-bishop's office was reflected by the division of his bureaucracy into the spiritual and the secular administration (Geistliche und Weltliche Regierung)This was the pattern in all the ecclesiastical principalities of the Empire.

14. The secular administration consisted of approximately fifty-five administrative districts, or & Ämter, with the Amtmann of each drawn from among the local nobility and most of the administrative personnel from among town magistrates. Spiritual administration was through sixteen rural deaneries (Landkapiteln)consisting entirely of the parish clergy and headed by one of those priests, who served as dean. Cf. Hof-und Staatskalendar (Würzburg, 1759).Google Scholar For the Ämter and local magistrates in a Protestant state, see Vann, James Allen, The Making of a State: Württemberg, 1593–1793 (Ithaca, 1984), chap. 1, 24–57.Google Scholar

15. The Benedictines had a strong pedagogical tradition of their own, based primarily in their monastic schools and in their University of Salzburg, the only Catholic university in the Empire not dominated by the Jesuits. They were leaders in the fight against Jesuit pedagogy and natural allies of the reform-minded secular clergy. In Franconia, the Abbey of Banz north of Bamberg was the Benedictine intellectual center. See Forster, Wilhelm, “Die kirchliche Aufklärung bei den Benediktinern der Abtei Banz,” Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige 63 (1951): 172–233 and 64 (1952): 110–233Google Scholar; Hemmerle, Josef, Die Benediktinerklöster in Bayern, vol. 2 in Germania Benedictina (Augsburg, 1970)Google Scholar; and Schwinger, Georg, “Das St. Stephans-Kloster O.S.B. in Würzburg: Beiträge zu dessen Geschichte,” Das Archiv des Historischen Vereins von Unterfranken und Aschaffenburg 41 (1899).Google Scholar

16. Michael Ignaz Schmidt taught imperial history in Würzburg from 1773 to 1780, when he went to Vienna as imperial archivist. He was active both as a historian and as a catechetical and pedagogical reformer. For his life, see Oberthür, Franz, Michael Ignaz Schmidts des Geschichtsschreibers der Deutschen Lebens-Geschichte (Hanover, 1802).Google Scholar

17. See Blanning, “The Enlightenment in Catholic Germany,” 120.

18. See Hersche, Peter, Der Spätjansenismus in Österreich (Vienna, 1977)Google Scholar, and “Der Österreichische Spätjansenismus: Neue Thesen und Fragestellungen,” in Katholische Aufklärung und Josephinismus, ed. Kovacs, Elisabeth (Munich, 1979), 180–93Google Scholar; also Deinhardt, Wilhelm, Der jansenismus in deutschen Landen: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchengeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1929).Google Scholar For the anti-Jesuit component of Jansenism, and particularly its influence on Maria Theresa's advisor Gerhard van Swieten, see Dülmen, Richard van, “Antijesuitismus und katholische Aufklärung in Deutschland,” Historisches Jahrbuch 89 (1969): 56.Google Scholar

19. See Blanning, “The Enlightenment in Catholic Germany,” 121. On Muratorianism in Austria, see Garms-Cornides, Elisabeth, “Zwischen Giannone, Muratori und Metastasio: Die Italiener in geistigen Leben Wiens,” in Engel-Janosi, Friedrich, et al. , eds., Formen der europäischen Aufklarung (Vienna, 1976)Google Scholar; and Zlabinger, Eleonore, Lodovico Muratori und Österreich (Innsbruck, 1970).Google Scholar

20. See Melton, James Van Horn, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria (Cambridge, 1988), 91–105.Google Scholar Melton argues convincingly for the influence of Pietist religious ideology and pedagogical models on Felbiger. Felbiger became director of elementary schools in Vienna in 1774 and corresponded widely with Catholic reformers throughout the Reich, including those in Würzburg. See below at n. 39 and following.

21. For the impact of natural law theory in general and of Christian Wolff and Halle in particular on Catholic Germany, see Blanning, Reform and Revolution in Mainz, 17–19; and Hammerstein, Notker, Jus und Historie: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des historischen Denkens an deutschen Universitäten im späten 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, (Göttingen, 1972), 148–68.Google Scholar

22. In Würzburg, Kantian philosophy attracted the sympathetic attention of the Benedictine professor Matern Reuss (1751–98), who began lectures at the university on Kant's critical philosophy in 1788–89 and spent almost a year in Königsberg in 1792–93. Reuss wrote numerous scholarly works, published his lectures, and wrote a popular tract entitled “Soll man auf katholischen Universitäten Kants Philosophic erklären?” (Würzburg, 1789)Google Scholar. For a biography of Reuss, see Motsch, Karl Eugen, Matem Reuss: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Frühkantianismus an katholischen Hochschulen (Freiburg i. Br., 1932).Google Scholar

23. Schmidt, Michael Ignaz, Entwurf der Wirzburger Schulen Einrichtung (Würzburg, 1774), 28.Google Scholar Virtually the entire text of this work is reproduced in Oberthür, 116–20. Schmidt wrote this text as a plan for reforming the Gymnasium and the university curriculum after the dissolution of the Jesuits. It combined structural detail with pedagogical theory.

24. Schmidt, Michael Ignaz, Die Geschichte des Selbstgefühls (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1772).Google Scholar A Protestant reviewer, Professor Johann Feder of Göttingen, remarked that “the author of the text has studied the most famous psychologists, and sometimes it seems as if he had a book before him and commented on it line by line.” Quoted in Oberthür, 179–80.

25. For Rösser's career, see Schindling, Anton, “Die Julius-Universität im Zeitalter der Aufklärung,” in Baumgart, Peter, ed., Vierhundert Jahre Universität Würzburg (Neustadt a.d. Aisch, 1982), 77–127, esp. 90; Motsch, 58–61; and Oberthür, 185Google Scholar.

26. Küffner, Karl, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Volksschule im Hochstift Würzburg von Joh. Gottfried von Guttenberg bis zum Tode Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim (Würzburg, 1888), 60 and 100–102.Google Scholar

27. See Ssymank, Harald, “Fürstbischof Adam Friedrich von Seinsheims Regierung in Würzburg und Bamberg (1755–1779)” (unpub. diss., Würzburg, 1939)Google Scholar; and von Roda, Burkard, Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim: Auftraggeber zwischen Rokoko und Klassizismus: Zur Würzburger und Bamberger Hofkunst anhand der Privatkorrespondenz des Fürstbischofs (1755–1779) (Neustadt a.d. Aisch, 1980).Google Scholar

28. Adam Friedrich was devoted to food, hunting, cards, and music. One of his secular officials, Christoph Johann Baptist von Wagner, reported that “the prince Seinsheim loved the hunt and hunters perhaps a little too much.” Henner, Theodor, ed., “Autobiographic des Staatsrats Christoph Johann Baptist von Wagner,” Das Archiv des Historischen Vereins von Unterfranken und Aschaffenburg, 47 (1905): 1–124, esp. 63.Google Scholar

29. See Eichelsbacher, 42–43; and Paulus, Stefan, 200 Jahre Lehrerbildung in Würzburg, in series Mainfränkische Studien, vol. 10 (Würzburg, 1975), 23.Google Scholar

30. The other two priests were Franz Oberthür (1745–1831) and David Götz (1736–93). See Konrad, 33–34; Reifenberg, Paul, “Die Entwicklung der Volksschule und der Volksschullehrerbildung von Würzburg unter den Fürstbischöfen von 1738–1802” (unpub. master's thesis, Würzburg, 1972), 25; and Eichelsbacher, 44Google Scholar.

31. Küffner, 64–67. The original members were Günther and Emmert from the Geistliche Regierung and Vice Chancellor von Habermann and Hofrat Saurer from the Weltliche Regierung, with von Gebsattel as president.

32. Blanning, Reform and Revolution in Mainz, 114–16. For schools in Mainz generally, see Brück, Anton, Kurmainzer Schulgeschichte: Texte, Berichte, Memoranden (Wiesbaden, 1960).Google Scholar

33. Konrad, 36.

34. Blanning, Reform and Revolution in Mainz, 115, emphasizes the fact that the Mainz school commission was, from its beginning, subject directly to the secular government rather than to the ecclesiastical administration. This was not true in Würzburg until the mid–1780s. It is not at all clear, however, that this difference was very important, and it certainly did not mean, as Blanning suggests, a significant “exclusion of ecclesiastical influence from education.” Schools, after all, remained a parish concern in Mainz as well as in Würzburg.

35. Küffner, 67–76; and Götz, Johann Baptist, “Aus der Geschichte des bayerischen Volksschulwesens, IV: Die Reform des Abtes Felbiger,” in Die Christliche Schule: Pädagogische Studien und Mitteilungen 10 (1919): 195–98.Google Scholar

36. For Hecker's career and his background in Francke's pathbreaking pedagogical institute at Halle, see Melton, 36–37 and 50–57.

37. Ibid., 52. Originally a private institution funded by contributions, Hecker's institute proved popular with the Prussian bureaucracy, and became a state institution receiving an annual subsidy in 1753.

38. Ibid., 52–54.

39. For a recent account of Felbiger's career and influence, see Ibid., esp. 91–105; 189–99.

40. Ibid., 189–90.

41. Ibid., 200–12.

42. Kuffner, 34–36; and Eichelsbacher, 43.

43. Blanning, Reform and Revolution in Mainz, 115–16; and Brück, 11.

44. For a summary of Götz's career, see Lindig, Annemarie, Franz Oberthür als Menschenfreund: Ein Kapitel aus der katholischen Aufklärung in Würzburg (Würzburg, 1963), 112.Google Scholar

45. Kuffner, 77–86.

46. Felbiger himself complimented Götz's efforts, but criticized the lack of a normal school for practical teacher training. Such a school was not established until after 1783, by Gotz's successor, Johann Lutz (1753–85). Küffner, 82

47. Entitled Schul-Ordnung fur die Niederen Stadt- und Land-Schulen des Fürstlichen Hochstifts Wurzburg auf höchsten Befehl des Hochwürdigsten des H.R.R. Fürsten und Herrn, Herrn Adam Friedrichs, Bischofes zu Bamberg und Würzburg, Herzoges zu Franken etc., Würzburg, 1774Google Scholar. None of the specifics of the development of this ordinance are known, but it was likely authored by David Gotz and Michael Ignaz Schmidt.

48. Konrad, 28–29.

49. Catholics and other religious minorities had been exempted from the provisions of the 1763 General-Land-Schul-Reglement, and Felbiger's Catholic ordinance proved popular with Frederick because it smoothly combined Catholic ecclesiastical structure with the authority of the Prussian state. Melton, 190–93.

50. Ibid., 212–13.

51. The textbook appeared under the title Erleichterte kurze und doch vollständige Anweisung zum Lesen, samt einem wirklichen regelma'ssigen Lesebuch für die Schulkinder des Hochstifts und Herzogtums Franken. Later, and presumably improved, editions appeared in the 1780s. The Buchstabiermethode of the text used a set of tables which taught reading by progressing first from individual letters, then to short syllables, and finally to entire words. A second section of the text offered reading exercises designed to teach moral lessons, often using religious and biblical stories. See Eichelsbacher, 46–47.

52. Schulordnung, Introduction.

53. Cited in Würzburger Chronik: Geschichte, Namen, Geschlecht, Leben, Thaten und Abstellen der Bischöfe von Würzburg,… vol. II (Würzburg, 1924), 431.Google Scholar

54. Cited in Konrad, 17; from Staatsarchiv Würzburg (SAW), Geistliche Sachen 1291 (destroyed, 1945).

55. Reifenberg, 38. On Dalberg's career, see Koeppel, Ferdinand, “Karl von Dalbergs Wirken für das Hochstift Würzburg unter Franz Ludwig von Erthal,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 17 (1953/1954): 253–98Google Scholar; Scherer, Wilhelm, “Karl von Dalbergs Tätigkeit für Schule und Unterricht,” Die Christliche Schule: Pädagogische Studien und Mitteillungen 1 (1910): 281–86Google Scholar; and Scherg, Theodor Joseph, Das Schulwesen unter Karl Theodor von Dalberg, 2 vols. (Munich, 1939).Google Scholar

56. Between 1770 and 1775, when the curriculum was six months long, sixteen candidates a year were admitted. Between 1776 and 1782, the number shrank to eight per year when the course expanded to an entire year. In 1783, however, when the normal school was opened, the number of candidates increased again to sixteen every year. A record of all applications, including entrance examination results, for the years 1770–1782 is found in SAW, Schulsachen 490.

57. The extant reports are found in SAW, Schulsachen 1114. The extent of compliance is unknown, but Dalberg in March 1781 reported that he still lacked most of the parish reports, after almost six months. Konrad, 38.

58. SAW, Schulsachen 1114, report from Gannberg. Both Adam Friedrich and Franz Ludwig served as prince-bishop of Bamberg.

59. Ibid., report from Höchstadt.

60. Ibid., report from Grätzsambach.

61. Ibid., report from Retzbach.

62. Ibid., report from Gössenheim.

63. Strobel was originally appointed to the school commission on 28 Jan. 1774. SAW, Schulsachen 899. In later years, Strobel took on the title of Geistliche Rat (1783) and, in 1785, he succeeded Franz Oberthür as city school director. See Konrad, 42; Eichelsbacher, 53; Flurschutz, Hildegunde, Die Verwaltung des Hochstifts Würzburg unter Franz Ludwig von Erthal (1779–1795) (Würzburg, 1965), 212Google Scholar; and Riel, Andreas, Revision des Würzburgischen Volksschulwesens, Teil I (Würzburg, 1803), 39–44.Google Scholar

64. SAW, Schulsachen 1097.

65. SAW, Schulsachen 1126.

66. Konrad, 39.

67. Hochfürstl. Gnaden zu Bamberg und Würzburg Verordnungen und Anstalten zur Visitation und gründlichen Untersuchung der Landschulen im Hochstift Würzburg (Würzburg, 1781).Google Scholar

68. “Die Pflichten der Pfarrer und Beamten in Rücksicht des Schulwesens,” in Sammlung aller jener landesherrlichen Verordnungen und Generalien, welche für das Elementar-Schulwesen in Grossherzogthume Würzburg von Jahre 1774 bis zum Ende des Jahres 1809 ergangen sind und noch bestehen (Würzburg, 1810), 167–74.Google Scholar

69. Eichelsbacher, 55.

70. Konrad, 44.

71. Sammlung aller … Verordnungen und Generalien… 122–42. The originator of Industrieschulen in Bohemia was the priest Ferdinand Kindermann, who sought to alleviate the poverty of his parish by promoting home industry. He had visited Halle as well as Sagan, and incorporated what he saw there with his idea of practical education. The industry schools, begun about 1772, proved very successful. See Melton, 136–40.

72. For two interesting discussions of the changing image of the peasant in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see La Vopa, 25–32; and Gagliardo, John G., From Pariah to Patriot: The Changing Image of the German Peasant, 1770–1840 (Lexington, 1969).Google Scholar

73. Becker corresponded regularly with leaders of the Würzburg pedagogical reform, including Karl Theodor von Dalberg. See Siegert, Reinhart, Aufklärung und Volkslektüre exemplarisch dargestellt an Rudolph Zacharias Becker und seinem “Noth-und Hülfsbüchlein” (Frank furt a.M., 1978).Google Scholar

74. Sammlung aller … Verordnungen und Generalien, … 159–63.

75. See Eichelsbacher, 60.

76. The visitation reports appear in SAW, Geistliche Sachen 166.

77. Diözesansarchiv Würzburg, Pfarreiakten Retzbach, Kasten 1.

78. SAW, Geistliche Sachen 166, report from Aschfeld,38.