WORMS
708
WORMS
this vicus and the Roman castrum, or military camp,
sprang the Civitas Vangionum, later called Worms.
It is uncertain at what time Christianity gained
an entrance into the settlement; the inscriptions
are of too late a date, and the Acts of the Council of
Cologne held in 346, in which a Bishop Victor of
Worms is mentioned, are a forgery. Yet it is evident
from Oro.sius, "Historia", VII, c. x.xxii (P. L., XXXI,
1144), that at the beginning of the fifth century the
left bank of the Rhine was predominantly Christian,
and had also ecclesiastical organization. It may,
therefore, be assumed that as early as the second half
of the fourth century there was a bishop at Worms.
In the fifth century Worms was the capital of the
Burgundians. The first bishop of whom there is
documentary proof is Berhtulf, who took part in the
Synod of Paris of 614 (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Concilia,
I, 192). It is said that towards the end of the seventh
century, Rupert, later Bishop of Salzburg, was Bishop
of Worms. From Erembert, who died in 79.3, the
clergy, and especially as Luther in 1521 came there to
the Diet. The emperor had invited him to come,
giving him a safe-conduct. Luther persisted in his
doctrine and was declared under the ban of the empire.
The Edict of Worms (1521) forbade aU innovations.
About the middle of the sixteenth century almost the
entire city of Worms was lost to the Catholic Church.
Notwithstanding the opposition of the bishop, Die-
trich of Bettendorf (15o2-S0), the monasteries were
robbed and suppressed. In 1689 the city was laid in
ashes by the French, with the exception of the cathe-
dral. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
the diocese was generally united by personal ties
with neighbouring sees, especially with those of Mainz
and Trier. One of the auxiUary bishops of Worms
was the well-known church historian and collector of
ancient charters, Stephen Alexander Wiirdtwein
(d. 1796). The last bishop was Frederick Charles Joseph
von Erthal (1774-1802), who was also Archbishop of
Mainz. In 1801 that part of the diocese on the left
Prtdica
piecbc
succession of bisliops is unbroken. Whether the dio-
cese had a permanent existence in the era from the
fourth to the eiglith centurj^, or whether its existence
was interrupted once or several times cannot be posi-
tively determined, owing to the condition of the au-
thorities, but its continuance is probable. About 750
the Diocese of Worms, which lay on both sides of the
Rhine, was made a suffragan of Mainz. Among the
bishops of the succeeding centuries the most impor-
tant are: Burchard (lOOCl-25), noted for his collection
of ecclesiastical canons, called "Collectarium" or
"Decretum", and during whose administration the
cathedral school flourished greatly; Adalbert (1069-
1107), a "pillar and ornament of the Church of Ger-
many", who opposed Henry IV in the struggle over
Investitures, while the city supported the emperor;
Emerich of Schoneck (1308-18), who had rigid laws
passed at the diocesan synod of 1316, both for the
secular and regular clergy. In 1122 the Concordat
that put an end to the strife concerning Investitures
was signed at Worms. The diocese never recovered
from the quarrels of the period 1329-43. The cathe-
dral chapter had elected Gerlach of Erbach (1329-32)
as bishop, while John XXII had appointed Salmann,
Provost of Mainz. After Gerlach's death Salmann was
not recognized by the diocese and did not obtain
possession of it until 1343; his episcopate lasted
until 1359. Matters were even worse during the rule
of Eckart of Ders (1371-1405). The citizens of
Worms threw off the authority of the bishop com-
pletely, and imprisoned the priests. The churches
were empty, the services ceased. Bishops Frederick
II (1426-45) and Reinhard of Sickingen (144.5-82)
exerted themselves to introduce reforms, as did also
John III of Dalberg (1482-1.503), who was a highly
educated patron of humanism and lover of art; he
also held a visitation.
The Lutheran doctrine was quickly accepted in Worms on account of the hostility of the citizens to the
bank of the Rhine passed with the city to France,
while the part on the right bank went in 1803 to
Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1805 the left bank also fell
to Hesse. In 1802 it had been assigned ecclesiasti-
cally to the new Diocese of Mainz, which was a suf-
fragan of MechUn; for the portion on the right bank of
the Rhine the Vicariate Apostolic of Lampertheim was
erected in 1806. When the ecclesiastical province of
the Upper Rhine was established in 1821, the city of
Worms remained in the Diocese of Mainz, and the
greater number of the parishes of the former bishopric
were given also to Mainz, others in districts that now
belonged to Bavaria, Baden, and Wt'u-temberg were
assigned to the Dioceses of Speyer, Freiburg, and
Rottenburg. In 1824 the city had 2379 CathoUc and
55.55 Protestant inhabitants; at the present time (1912)
there are 14,000 CathoUcs and 28,800 Protestants.
The former diocese had many monasteries. Thus there
were Hermits of St. Augustine at Kirschgarten near
Worms; Augustinians at Frankenthal, Sinsheim, and
Honingen; Slinorites at Worms, Heidelberg, Kaisers-
lautern, Oppenheim, and Sinsheim; Cistercians at
Schonau near Heidelberg; Dominicans at Worms,
Weinheim, Heidelberg, and Wimpfen; Carmelites at
Worms, Weinheim, Heidelberg, and Hirschhom;
Capuchins at Worms, Griinstadt, Frankenthal, Mann-
heim, Heidelberg, Ladenburg, etc. A remarkable
monument of former episcopal rank is the ancient
cathedral of Worms, which was the smallest and
latest of the Romanesque cathedrals of the upper
Rhine; it is a late Romanesciue reconstruction at the
end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth
centuries of an early Komanosque building. It makes
a strong impression by the inqjosing force and rich-
ness of its exterior and its imity of appearance as a
whole. Especially striking are the two domes and
the four corner towers. At the present time the
cathedral is a Catholic church under a provost. In
addition to the parish of the provost the city has two
