Michael Frey (historian)

Pastor Michael Frey

Pastor Michael Frey, ca.1840

Michael Frey , baptized Johann Michael (born September 21, 1788 in Schweighofen , Rheinpfalz , † January 8, 1854 in Hatzenbühl ) was a Catholic priest and pastor in the diocese of Speyer . As a historian, he published a four-volume description of the Bavarian Rhine District , i.e. the Palatinate , which has remained a standard work to this day.

Live and act

Michael Frey was born as the son of the wealthy farmer Lorenz Frey in Schweighofen in the south of the Palatinate, which at the time also belonged politically to the old duchy of Speyer . The father temporarily acted as mayor of the place.

After the French occupation of the German areas on the left of the Rhine, according to the Concordat of 1801 between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon , dioceses that were identical in area were established at the departmental seats. The old dioceses were declared dissolved (with regard to their left bank, now French areas). Schweighofen was then proposed to the French Bas-Rhin department with its departmental headquarters in Strasbourg . The new large diocese of Strasbourg corresponded to the territory of the political department and was therefore also connected to the southern parts of the old diocese of Speyer on the left bank of the Rhine , which now belonged to the Bas-Rhin department; Schweighofen thus came under the jurisdiction of the Sprengels of Strasbourg.

Michael Frey wanted to enter the clergy. That's why his parents sent him across the Rhine to Rastatt, Germany . The prince-bishopric of Speyer still existed here on the right bank of the Rhine. The boy attended the Piarist College there from 1808 to 1812 and thus escaped the Napoleonic military service to which one of his brothers fell victim in Russia. On May 23, 1812, Frey was ordained a priest in Strasbourg. In this diocese he worked until the re-annexation of the southern Palatinate area to the new diocese of Speyer , which took place legally in 1817, but in fact only in 1822.

Michael Frey officiated from July 8, 1812 to November 14, 1813 as chaplain in Wanzenau and from November 15, 1813 to May 31, 1814 as such in Weißenburg (Alsace) . On June 1, 1814 Michael Frey was appointed pastor of Jockgrim , where he remained until May 18, 1825. In this position he moved with his parish from the diocese of Strasbourg to the new diocese of Speyer, in 1822 he was appointed district school inspector. He also created a parish memorial book in Jockgrim, which was still a rarity at the time and a clear indication of his historical interest.

Bishop Matthäus Georg von Chandelle promoted Frey to the more lucrative parish of Rheinzabern on May 19, 1825 , where he was very interested in the Roman finds in the parish, but because of his poor health in the large church he reached his physical limits when singing and preaching. He asked for a transfer to a smaller community, which took place on May 6, 1826. On that day he became pastor of Hatzenbühl , where from now on he worked as a zealous pastor for almost a generation until his death in 1854. In 1837 the priest was promoted to dean there .

On December 15, 1853, Pastor Frey had heard confession in the cold church for most of the day. In the evening he came back freezing, sat down by the stove and suffered a stroke, which was followed a short time later by a second. Despite his physical handicap, he continued to do his job, but asked for a vicar in Speyer on December 30th because of his poor health. Before that happened, Pastor Frey suffered a complete collapse on January 6, 1854 and died two days later. He was buried in the Hatzenbühl cemetery with a large number of participants.

In its issue No. 3 of January 17, 1954, " The Pilger " reported on a ceremony with a wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of Pastor Michael Frey on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death. In Hatzenbühl the "Pfarrer-Frey-Straße" was named after the priest, in the place of birth Schweighofen the "Pfarrer-Michael-Frey-Straße".

Historian and regional historian

Title page, Volume 2 of the “Description of the Rhine District”, by Pastor Michael Frey, 1836

Michael Frey's life was little different from that of other priests; However, his research into local history made him a timelessly well-known personality in the region.

With a keen interest in local history, Frey, in addition to his spiritual work, brought together a vast amount of regional and historical data and facts. In Speyer he met the diocesan historian Franz Xaver Remling , who was just publishing his first book in 1832. He supported Frey in his research. After collecting, sifting through, sorting and evaluating the material, Pastor Frey put it in book form. In his publication he kept to the borders of the home diocese of Speyer, which now corresponded exactly to those of the political Rhine district in the Kingdom of Bavaria . It is the area that makes up the Palatinate today, plus the Saar - Palatinate district that is now in the Saarland .

Pastor Frey published the extensive work under the title "Attempt at a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal Bavarian Rhine district" in 4 volumes. Volume 1 covered the judicial district of Landau, i.e. his immediate home, Volume 2 that of Frankenthal. Both books were published in Speyer in 1836. Volume 3, on the judicial district of Kaiserslautern and 4 on that of Zweibrücken, followed in 1837. At that time, the Bavarian Rhine District had only existed for 20 years and was composed of many different historical territories; no one had yet described the new creation completely and in detail. Johann Goswin Widder produced a work similar to Frey in 1786/87 under the title “Attempt at a Complete Geographical-Historical Description of the Electoral Palatinate on the Rheine”, also in 4 volumes. Michael Frey could only use it as a source to a very limited extent, since the turbulent times had radically changed a lot since then and not even half of the areas he now described previously belonged to the old Electoral Palatinate . In the general design, of course, Widder's description served as a template, which can already be recognized from the similar title. Pastor Frey's work, however, is the first and fundamental of its kind, which includes the entire Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine, which is why it became a sought-after source work and it was reprinted again in 1975.

In addition to this description of the country, Michael Frey published together with Franz Xaver Remling in 1845 the "Document Book of the Otterberg Monastery " .

In 1904, Volume 48 of the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie finally states:

“ ... a man whom the Catholic clergy proudly call theirs and who has forever earned a respected name among the historians of the Palatinate. "

Works

• Attempt of a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal Bavarian Rhine district. 4 volumes. FC Neidhard, Speyer 1836/37 ( Volume 1 , Volume 2 , Volume 3 , Volume 4 ).
• (Ed. with Franz Xaver Remling ) Document book of the Otterberg monastery. Kirchheim, Schott and Thielmann, Mainz 1845 ( online ).

literature

• Johann Josef Hermann Schmitt:  Frey, Johann Michael . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, p. 743 f.
• J. Mayerhofer: Johann Michael Frey. In: Communications of the Historical Association of the Palatinate. Volume XIX (1895).
• Karl Lutz: A pastor from the Palatinate about the Rhine district and the Rhineland: On the centenary of the death of the regional historian Michael Frey. , Archive for Middle Rhine Church History, 1954 (also published as a separate print).
• Arnold Frey: Michael Frey, Palatine pastor and historian. In: Heimatjahrbuch Landkreis Südliche Weinstrasse. Vol. 25 (2003), p. 101 f.

Web links

Wikisource: Michael Frey  - Sources and full texts

• Website of the Schweighofen parish with an illustrated entry about Michael Frey
• Website of the Verbandsgemeinde Jockgrim about important personalities, with an entry regarding Michael Frey.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ludwig Stamer, Church History of the Palatinate, Volume 4, page 298, on Frey's "Description of the Rhine District"
2. ↑ Cardinal Johannes von Geissel on Freys and Remling's "Document Book of the Otterberg Monastery"
3. ^ Johann Josef Hermann Schmitt:  Frey, Johann Michael . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, p. 743 f.