User:Dr Gangrene/Christianity in Luxembourg

Christianity spread in Luxembourg from the city of Trier, along the Roman roads. The episcopal organisation of the area started in the late 3rd century with Euchaire and Maximin of Trier, and in the early 4th century, Materne of Cologne. The Christianisation of rural areas only came much later. Rural populations remained strangers to Christianity despite scattered islands in Arlon, Bitburg, Altrier and Dalheim. In the late 5th century, the Church was cut off from the power held by the new, Frankish arrivals, who were dedicated to the cult of Odin.

After the baptism of the Frankish king Clovis I, the Frankish people were open to Christianity in theory, but paganism subsisted in remote regions, and only died out over the next two centuries.

Under the Carolingians, the Frankish church's reorganisation went underway, and the evangelisation of the area of Luxembourg was facilitated by the official recognition of Christianity. Missionaries from Aquitaine, Ireland and England helped in this.

The work of these missionaries was complemented by the foundation of monasteries in the 7th and 8th centuries: St. Maximin's Abbey in Trier (633), Stavelot-Malmedy (650), Andagium (687). Andagium became the abbey of Saint-Hubert when the remains of Saint Hubert, the bishop of Liège and patron saint of the Ardennes, were moved there in 824. Around 690, Saint Leodouin founded the abbey of Mettlach, while in 722, Bertha, sister of Charles Martel, founded Prüm Abbey, with the aid of monks from Echternach.

In the Germanic part of the region, the work of Willibrord was of prime importance. An Anglo-Saxon originally from Northumbria, Willibrord was born around 657, and took vows in the Benedictine abbey of Ripon. Around 690, he travelled with several companions to southern Frisia. He was made a bishop in 695, and established his episcopal see in Utrecht. In 698 he came to Trier. Irmine, the abbess of Oeren near Trier, granted him land in Echternach, and possessions in Badelingen, Batzen, Osweiler, and a vineyard in Vianden. Willibrord undertook new constructions in Echternach, and founded the Abbey of Echternach, dedicated to educating monks according to the Benedictine rule. It was in Echternach that he was buried in 739, and he would later come to be seen as a national saint.

The abbey of Echternach saw an extraordinary development, and continued to enjoy protection by rulers after the death of its founder. Its spiritual and artistic influence would make it one of the most important monasteries in the West. It went on to produce manuscripts, illuminated holy texts, which started to be dispersed from the 18th century. The contents of its library was estimated at 7,000 items at the times of the end of the Ancien Régime. The French Revolutionaries' pillages, and the flight of the monks towards Germany, taking with them their treasures which they later sold, caused the abbey's works of medieval religious art to be dispersed until today throughout the libraries of Nuremberg, Bremen, Trier, Darmstadt, Hamburg, El Escorial and Paris.

Reign of Ermesinde
In the reign of Countess Ermesinde in the 13th century, several religious establishments were founded in Luxembourg, such as the convent of Marienthal near Mersch, a convent of Penitents on the Saint-Esprit plateau, a Cistercian monastery in Bonnevoie, the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Houffalize, a hospital of the Trinitarians in Bastogne, and a convent in Clairefontaine-lez-Arlon.

16th and 17th centuries: Spanish Netherlands
The Provincial Council (Conseil provincial) exercised functions in the ecclesiastical domain. Luxembourg had the peculiarity that the bishops, the ecclesiastical authorities, resided outside of the territory. Their acts could not obtain the force of law without the approval of the Council, in the form of the "placet". The Council often made use of this to retain control of the Catholic Reformation, and to force foreign bishops to recognise its authority. At first it was necessary for papal and episcopal acts, but eventually was required for any juridical act by a clergyman. In certain areas, the Council exercised a right of censorship over the church, such as in the areas of visits by the bishops or their representatives, papal and episcopal bulls and pastoral letters, observations of religious holidays, and appointments to parishes. During the conflicts with Trier, the Council's resistance prevented the archbishop of Trier from levying taxes from the Luxembourgish clergy.

From the 14th century, the ruler of Luxembourg had had to consult the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie, especially when asking for money: this eventually evolved into the Provincial Estates of Luxembourg. As to the clergy, contemporary sources mention specifically the sires prélats, as it was only the large abbeys that were represented, as large-scale landowners. These were the abbey of St. Maximin of Trier, which was outside of Luxembourg but owned a lot of land in the territory, as well as the abbeys of Echternach, Munster, Orval, and Saint-Hubert, and the priory of Houffalize. The secular clergy and the smaller monasteries were not represented.

Luxembourg was at this time divided between six dioceses, two of which took up the lion's share of the duchy: the archdiocese of Trier and the diocese of Liège; the others were the dioceses of Metz, Verdun, Reims and Cologne.

The secular clergy at this time lived a generally unvirtuous life, lived in poverty and were under-educated. As to the regular clergy, there was a profound decadence which affected the old and established monasteries such as that of Echternach (Benedictines), Saint-Hubert (Benedictines), Orval (Cistercians), Altmünster (Benedictines) as well as more recent establishments. As in the rest of the Habsburg Netherlands, the situation of the Catholic Church in Luxembourg was precarious: the number of clerics who drank or had relationships was high, and the parishioners were often left to themselves, without regular religious instruction, and turned to superstition. The number of witchcraft trials in the 16th and 17th centuries was correspondingly high.

18th century: Austrian Habsburgs
In the 18th century, the clergy in Luxembourg could take no substantive decision without the consent of the state. The practice of the placet allowed the government to exercise a measure of control on ecclesiastical acts. No order or pastoral letter, whether from the pope or the bishop, could be published in the duchy without the consent of the Conseil de Luxembourg. Nominations to a parish or benefice could not go ahead without the assent of the civil authorities.

The secular clergy's situation, particularly in rural areas, was not particularly healthy. The more favoured among them were educated in the theology faculties of Louvain, Trier or Cologne; the others received their education from a parish priest, who would have taught them some elements of Latin, philosophy and theology. The priests' social rank would vary greatly according to their financial situation.

The clergy's resources derived from tithes, revenues from fees for baptisms, marriages and burials, and revenues from the bouvrot, land which rural clergymen exploited as farmers of crops or livestock.

Many of them exercised the function of "curé-notaire", drafting contracts of marriage and testaments for their parishioners. This function, defined in 1586 by Philip II, was particularly present in the duchy of Luxembourg, which was handicapped by large distances and the poor urban network. Those clergymen without a parish were forced to content themselves with the revenues from working as parochial vicars, sacristans or as schoolteachers. These clergymen, poorly educated and living modestly, were a reflection of the rural, poor and superstitious Luxembourgish society, from which many of them originated.

The regular clergy enjoyed a higher level of prestige than the secular clergy. It was concentrated in the abbeys of Echternach, Munster, Saint-Hubert and Orval. The abbeys were large property owners in the 18th century, and built their own foundries; the abbots, alongside their spiritual role, also played a political and industrial role. Nicolas Spirlet (1715-1794), the last abbot of Saint-Hubert, specialised in producing cannons which were exported to Revolutionary America.

After the reforms of Joseph II, the contemplative orders were suppressed, while the large monasteries disappeared in the French Revolution. Orval was the only one that would later be re-founded, in 1927.