3 - The Palatinate crisis and its aftermath, 1719–1724

Summary

At the beginning of September 1719 the reformed protestants of the Palatinate found themselves in difficulties. Earlier in the year the catholic elector, Karl Philipp, had banned the use and publication of the Heidelberg catechism. The catechism had irritated the elector for two reasons. First, he felt that the description of the catholic mass in the eightieth question and accompanying gloss was deeply offensive and secondly, he was annoyed that editions of the catechism had been printed bearing his coat of arms without his permission. The ecclesiastical authorities, the Kirchenrat, claimed to their supporters outside the Palatinate that the arms had been added by the catechism's catholic publisher without their permission. The content of the catechism was more problematic. A contemporary English translation of the eightieth question (What is the difference between the Lord's Supper and the Mass of the Papists?) noted that while ‘the Lord's Supper is a Testimony to us, that we have full Remission of all our Sins by the only Sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST’, the Mass ‘teaches, that neither the Living nor the Dead obtain Remission of Sins by the Death of JESUS CHRIST, unless he be again offer'd up daily to them by the hands of Priests . . . the Mass is at bottom nothing less than blaspheming the only Sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST, and a cursed Idolatry’.The gloss was even more forthright claiming that ‘the law is from God but the Mass is from the Devil.’

The elector was also dissatisfied with the sharing of the Heiliggeistkirche in Heidelberg between the reformed and the catholics. The church, the elector claimed, had been a court church and he was no longer content to use the choir but not the nave; the choir was too small for the catholics. As several of his relatives were buried in the church, it was impertinent not to have unlimited access to their tombs, the entrance to which was in the protestant part of the church. At the end of August representatives of the Kirchenrat were summoned to see Baron Hillesheim, the president of the privy council. They were given a week to vacate the church. On 4 September 1719 the catholics knocked down the internal dividing wall and took possession of the whole church.