ABSTRACT
On 22 April 1626, the district magistrate of Nabburg reported to the Bavarian commissars in Amberg a disturbance which had taken place the day before during the celebration of a wedding in the hamlet of Willhof. The chapel there was a filial church of the parish of Altendorf, whose Protestant pastor had just died. Seizing the opportunity presented by the sudden vacancy, the Dean of Nabburg had appointed a Catholic cleric, Father Caspar Degenmayer, as provisional-priest in Altendorf. Patronal rights over Willhof were, however, claimed by a local noble, Albrecht Gerhard von Löschwitz, who employed a judge and a Protestant minister in the neighbouring village of Altfalter. Tensions surfaced when one of the villagers, Georg Rauch, planned to marry in Willhof. On the appointed day, Father Degenmayer arrived in the village to perform the ceremony, only to discover that the church had been locked up on the orders of the judge of Altfalter. The verger and the churchwarden refused to hand over the keys and the gathered villagers ridiculed and threatened the priest. Degenmayer pleaded that ‘even though he was in black, he was not the Devil’, but having suggested in vain that he could conduct the service in the cemetery was forced to retreat. Upon his departure the magistrate ordered the church reopened and a horse was sent to fetch from Altfalter the Protestant pastor who conducted the service. A hastily penned letter of
protest from Degenmayer arrived just as the ceremony ended.1 As soon as they heard of the incident the Bavarian commissars at Amberg ordered an interrogation of the bridal party and the witnesses. The judge of Altfalter was questioned in the capital and, despite the intercession of von Löschwitz, received a fine of 30 Reichstaler and was required to pay court costs.2 The government clearly considered that swift action was vital.
