The May Laws (or Falk Laws) of 1873 were legislative bills enacted during the Kulturkampf that gave responsibility for the training and appointment of clergy to the state, which resulted in the closing of nearly half of the seminaries in Prussia by 1878. Their name comes from German politician Adalbert Falk.
This translated into fewer seminarians and more parishes without priests, so that in many places half the parishes stood vacant, leaving hundreds of thousands of Catholics without regular spiritual care. In Trier, Catholics responded to the closing of the seminary by hosting seminarians in their homes and classes were conducted less formally. More commonly, seminarians were sent abroad for training, although such stop-gap measures did not nearly make up for the losses imposed by the May Laws.
Those assisting priests in contravention of the May Laws were subject to fines, arrest and imprisonment, and 210 people were convicted of such crimes in the first four months of 1875. The May Laws succeeded in making life harder for Catholics, but the failure of the May Laws to cause the total collapse of Catholic resistance and allow for complete control of the Church by the state is one facet of the broader failure of the Kulturkampf.