Texts and Research

The grave of Parish Priest Nikolaus Houallet in the Immendorf cemetery.
A plain gravestone with a wrought-iron enclosure, located near the path leading to the entrance of the church.

Front side of the death notice of Nikolaus Houallet.
Source: Archive of the Archdiocese of Cologne.

Nikolaus Houallet was born on 27 June 1840 in Hermeskeil, in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate. He came from a Catholic family whose social background was shaped by education, administrative service, and religious affiliation. His biography emerges from the surviving traces of a family history marked by mobility, state service, and a strong sense of duty.

Family and Early Circumstances

His father, Johann Baptist Houallet, served as a senior tax office assistant (Haupt-Steueramts-Assistent) and held a responsible position within the state administration. He was born on 25 December 1801 and married Barbara Fitzer on 28 September 1830 in Hermeskeil. Eight children were born within eleven years. Nikolaus had three brothers and four sisters.

Johann Baptist Houallet was the eldest son of Antoine (Antonii) Houallet, who served as a gendarm in state service. Antoine Houallet married Margaretha Weitzmann on 15 June 1802 in Wadern. In 1805, a daughter, Maria Anna Houallet, was born.

Antoine Houallet died on 24 December 1813 at the age of 44. He left behind his wife and several minor children. Johann Baptist Houallet was twelve years old at the time. Four younger sisters were still living in the household, the youngest only three years old. Responsibility for the family fell to the mother. The eldest son assumed an early role within the family structure.

Origin and Spatial Movement

The Houallet family was not tied to a single place. It originally came from Wadern, which never belonged ecclesiastically to the parish of Hermeskeil and is today located in the Saarland. Administrative and professional connections to Hermeskeil developed only in the course of the nineteenth century.

French-language documents indicate a broader geographical origin.

A marriage record from the period of French administration describes Antoine Houallet as a 31-year-old gendarme, born on 19 March 1770 (old style) in Dampierre, Département de la Seine, in the area of today’s greater Paris region.

He was the son of Pierre Adrien Houallet, who had already died before his son’s marriage and had also lived in Dampierre. For other members of the family, residence in Dampierre is likewise documented.

The move from the French core region to the Saar area took place during the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic reorganization of Europe. Administration, official duty, and legal continuity structured professional life. In this context, Antoine Houallet’s entry into the gendarmerie is to be placed.

From State Service to Ecclesiastical Office

This institutional orientation continued in the next generation. Johann Baptist Houallet entered the tax administration and served within the Prussian bureaucratic system.

Professionally motivated relocations later took the family to Düsseldorf, where Johann Baptist Houallet died on 20 September 1871 at the age of 69.

Nikolaus Houallet attended secondary school (Gymnasium) in Düsseldorf. In 1861 he matriculated at the University of Münster. He continued his theological studies at the University of Bonn and completed his training at the Cologne seminary, which he finished successfully. On 4 September 1865 he received priestly ordination.

For the following two and a half years he served as rector in Heiligenhaus in the parish of Homberg. He was subsequently appointed parish vicar in Schlebusch and, after the death of the local parish priest, became parish administrator. As a consequence of the Kulturkampf, he remained in this position for an extended period. On 1 June 1889 he was appointed parish priest of Immendorf.

The Kulturkampf in the Rhineland and the Archdiocese of Cologne

The Kulturkampf was implemented in the Rhineland with particular rigor. The Archdiocese of Cologne was one of the central areas of conflict between state legislation and ecclesiastical authority.

Clergy were subject to state supervision; ecclesiastical structures were monitored; offices were left vacant or withdrawn.

The Archbishop of Cologne, Paulus Melchers (1813–1895), resisted state interference in church affairs. He was arrested in 1874 and expelled from the country. The administration of the archdiocese was conducted from exile for several years. Numerous priests were persecuted, convicted, or restricted in the exercise of their office.

Ecclesiastical service took place under conditions of legal uncertainty, political control, and public pressure. Parish priests operated between state requirements and ecclesiastical obligations.

Contemporary sources, in particular Nikolaus Houallet’s death notice, list terms such as duty, loyalty, perseverance, and endurance. They record the exercise of office under these conditions. Nikolaus Houallet worked in preaching, confession, pastoral care of the sick, and education. He remained active until a few days before his death and collapsed during his service.

What Remains of Nikolaus Houallet?

Nikolaus Houallet stands within a family and institutional history shaped over several generations by service to state and church. The early death of his grandfather Antoine Houallet, the responsibility borne by his father as the eldest son in a large family, and the sustained attachment to institutional order form the biographical framework.

His life illustrates how individual biographies, professional careers, and political upheavals intersect. He thus belongs to a larger story: a family and institutional history in which order, responsibility, and reliability carried lasting significance across generations.

This text is part of the series “Texts & Research” and is based on archival sources, genealogical findings, and historical contextualization.