Kaspar Koch

This article deals with the priest Kaspar Koch. For other people see Caspar Koch .

Kaspar Joseph Koch , also Abbé Caspar Koch , (born November 2, 1742 in Sarmenstorf , † July 1805 in Weggis ) was an enlightening priest and fighter for the Helvetic Revolution .

Life

Kaspar Koch was born in Sarmenstorf ( Freiamt ) in 1742 . He obtained his high school education at the Jesuit colleges of Solothurn and Lucerne . From 1764 to 1769 he studied theology in Freiburg im Üechtland and Lucerne, where he was ordained a priest in 1768. From 1769 to 1770 he was vicar in Romoos and then from 1770 to 1774 in Ruswil . He tried in vain for a pastor's position. From 1774 he was the owner of the Marien and Ehrenpfründe of Ettiswil . As a so-called honorary chaplain, he also worked as a schoolmaster, but with his school reforms he challenged the protest of the village pastor and his parents. In 1790 he resigned as chaplain of Ettiswil and became field preacher in Lucerne. With the Helvetic Revolution in 1798 he resigned from the priesthood and took on administrative functions. He initially worked as the city's chief agent. In 1798, the legally inexperienced cook was appointed public prosecutor ( public prosecutor ). He resigned from this office in 1801. He died in July 1805 while hiking on the Rigi .

Abbé Kaspar Koch took radical Enlightenment positions very early on. His attempt to design the village school of Ettiswil according to completely new ideological approaches met with only rejection in the parish and the episcopal commissioner. From 1786 he was a member of the Helvetic Society and regularly attended its annual meetings. A lecture he gave there was felt to be too radical that he self-published it in 1799. Together with other Lucerne early enlightenment people , Koch was the founder of the Lucerne Reading Society , which soon came under the scrutiny of the authorities because of its revolutionary writing. After the victory of the Helvetic, he wrote a series of philosophical and partly revolutionary and anti-clerical pamphlets, which caused quite a stir in Lucerne.

Kaspar Koch was in correspondence with some Lucerne personalities. For example with Johann Melchior Mohr , Joseph Anton Felix von Balthasar and Franz Bernhard Meyer-Schauensee .

Works

Thanks address to the Helvetic clergy: Title page 1800

• My feelings and reasoning about the event of the first and thirtieth of January in the city of Lucerne . Lucerne 1798.
• A conversation between Arnold and Herrmann, two men from the former democratic classes, about today's revolution . Lucerne 1798.
• Thoughts of a patriotic Entlebucher when he first visited the assembly of the legislative council . Lucerne 1799.
• A sketch of the course of the human mind and some of the same periods down to our times. Dedicated to the Helvetian Patriotic Society in Arau . Lucerne 1799
• Thanks address to the Helvetic clergy, on behalf of all well-meaning citizens who sympathize . Lucerne 1800.
• A word about equality and popular sovereignty for truth-loving people, from her friend Caspar Koch . Lucerne 1800.

literature

• Waltraud Hörsch: Koch, Kaspar. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Paul Bernet: The canton of Lucerne at the time of the Helvetic Republic. Aspects of civil service and church politics . Lucerne 1993.
• Josepf Bannwart, Waltraud Hörsch: Lucerne parish and world clergy, 1700-1800 . Lucerne 1998.
• Hans Wicki: State, Church, Religiosity. The canton of Lucerne between baroque tradition and the Enlightenment . Lucerne, Stuttgart 1990.
• Ulrich Im Hof , François de Capitani: The Helvetian Society. Late Enlightenment and Pre-Revolution in Switzerland . Frauenfeld, Stuttgart 1983.

Web links

• Jürg Schmutz: A Brief History of the Lucerne Public Prosecutor's Office , Lucerne 2008 pdf

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wicki (1990)
2. ^ Bannwart: Maria zum Schnee on the Rigiberg, after Th. Fassbind, pastor in Schwyz, bishop. Commissarius . In: Geschichtsfreund , 15 (1859).
3. ↑ Hörsch / Bannwart (1998)