Liebfrauenstraße

The Long Road to the ‘Interdenominational School’

In the 18th century, cities with multiple denominations also had several elementary schools. In Kirchheimbolanden, these included Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic schools, plus a Jewish one. The Lutheran school even had two separate locations, one for boys and one for girls. Additionally, the higher school (“Latin School”), founded in 1681 [Location 27], was present, and from 1846, a “Higher Private Girls’ School” was established.

The Catholic elementary school originated in the immediate vicinity of the Liebfrauenkirche [Location 14] in today’s Liebfrauenstraße. However, as the city map from 1759 indicates, there was no development here – opposite the former Kirchheimbolanden cemetery – in the mid-18th century. Construction only began in the 1760s.

Similarly, the Lutheran and Reformed elementary schools were located in the vicinity of the two Protestant churches (Mozartstraße 10/12, Amtsstraße 1 and 7) [Locations 18, 30], as the curriculum was formerly very strongly denominationally determined.

The dissolution of the denominational pattern in elementary schools during the 19th century was, however, partly a result of economic development.

This resulted in the establishment of a denominationally mixed communal school in Kirchheimbolanden in 1872.