The phrase cuius regio, eius religio was coined in 1582 by the legist Joachim Stephani (1544–1623) of the University of Greifswald.
Effectively all the villages within the Ban de la Roche became Protestant when the lands were sold by the Rathsamhausen family to the German Count Palatine, George John of Veldenz in the sixteenth century.
During the Protestant Reformation, the popular tracts and catechisms of Martin Luther, John Calvin and other Reformers were sold in areas controlled by Protestant monarchs, who determined the faith in their region (see: Cuius regio, eius religio).