"Speyer - European Heritage - Bishop's Seat" Top 5 Page for this destination Speyer by Trekki

The early days and Salian Emperors

Besides Worms and Mainz, Palatine town of Speyer is considered a famous and very important old emperor town for Germany and Europe. However, Speyer has a much higher significance for European history, as it’s Cathedral is burial ground for 8 emperors and empresses and 3 kings of Holy Roman Empire.

Also, in my humble opinion, Speyer's Cathedral is much more impressive than the ones of Worms and Mainz, maybe because she has a special “setting” with her huge foretcourt, separating or unifying Cathedral from or with the city.

I am not much of a religious person, well, I believe in a power that “forms” earth and us, and which we will never understand, may it be called god or nature. But anytime when I am in Speyer, I have a certain very intense feeling of spiritualiy, I feel very tiny and the Cathedral and its surroundings fill me with awe.

After having been here as a kid very often, I returned in July 2006, for a short visit with colleagues from Brazil, but this visit already made me curious to see more. Since then I was here almost 20 or 30 times (I stop counting), as almost every of my weekend tours into Palatinate ends in Speyer and I have learned a lot more about this fascinating town, which is so much loaded with European old history.

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Speyer's very early history begun around 1st century, when Germanic tribe of Nemeter have settled in the region, shown by it's very first name of Civitas Nemetum. A bit later, it was renamed into Spria, originated by the little river Speyerbach, which flows into Rhine River here.

The settlement didn't have much of significance, but this changed quite drastic after 1024, when Salian Konrad II was elected king to succeed Heinrich II, who died without heir. Konrad II had quite a sad youth, his father died early and he was educated from the bishop of Worms. Those days, the kings' and emperors' life was very much dedicated to religion, and they have been considered as the human representatives of god on earth – the idea of Christian kingdoms. This as well as his relatively little property before his nomination to be king was most probably the reason why he has decided to start building Speyer Cathedral, as to express his power and deep religiousness. Speyer Cathedral was not only thought to become a big church, it should become THE biggest church of the occident. Along Rhine River, similar churches have been built around that time, namely Worms and Mainz Cathedrals.

However, erecting such a monumental building needed time, and at the time of his death in 1039, only the eastern part of the Cathedral was finished. He was buried there, between the stairs to the crypt. His wife Gisela, who died 4 years later, was buried next to him. Heinrich III, Konrad's son, continued with the constructions, but increased the originally planned dimensions – the total length of the Cathedral should now be 134 m, very much the most extraordinary building of these days. But also Heinrich III did not live long enough to see the Cathedral being finished, her consecration took place in 1061.

Imperial Cathedral of Speyer, from the south

Heinrich III's son, Heinrich IV (the one who went to Canossa), even had an higher need for representation than his forefathers, and decided to tear down part of the Cathedral for building higher and bigger. These extensions were meant again to demonstrate the proof of his divine appointment. However, with all this increasing demonstration of emperor's power over papal power, it was most logical that at a point in time this lead to disputes between the powers. Heinrich IV was banned from the pope, and his son, Heinrich V settled the disputes by dividing several rights and decisions between emperor and pope. This was more or less also the time, when no further enlargement (= demonstration of power) was done to the Cathedral (mid 12th century).

Over the course of time, Speyer became free imperial city (meaning that it was responsible to the emperor only – and not, as before, was governed by territory dukes), and could hold "Reichstage" (conventions held in Roman Empire). Very famous was the second one, held in 1529 and leading to the Protestation of Speyer, where Protestants claimed the end of imperial ban against Martin Luther and his theses. Later, in 1893, Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church) was built in memory of this protestation.

From Salian times (1024) on until 1689, Speyer had a quiet and prospering life, the constructions of the Cathedral attracted a lot of craftsmen, merchants and others to town, and the town expanded yearly. In 1570, Speyer had 68 town gates and towers, 38 churches and chapels, and more than 800 civil houses.

However, as we say in German – no godly can live in peace if his neighbour does not like - in 1689, Speyer, as palatine village, was victim of French King Louis' XIV (the Sun King) idea of annexing Palatine in the War of the Great Alliance. Liselotte von der Pfalz (Liselotte of Palatine) became his sister in law in 1671, and after her brother's Karl II death in 1685, Louis XIV claimed to inherit the Palatine. Liselotte refused, and Louis sent troops to devastate villages and kill people.

During this war, Speyer endured the biggest destruction in its history, when French troops set the village on fire in May 1689. It was not planned to burn down the Cathedral, but flying sparks completed the destruction also here.
After this, no building was undamaged – 800 houses, 8 churches and 5 convents were left in ashes.

1697, some citizens and the bishop with his staff returned to their badly wounded homeland and started to rebuild the Cathedral. This, however, took some time and also quite some discussions about style and dimensions. Finally, around 1770, Ignaz Michael Neumann (son of famous baroque builder Balthasar Neumann) could convince with his plans. The western part did not have towers in this plan, but the baroque façade was richly decorated with statues and ornaments.

Imperial Cathedral of Speyer, from the west

No peace for village and Cathedral, however, as they became target of riots during French Revolution end of 18th century. Luckily, another destruction of the Cathedral by Napoleon could be avoided early 19th century.

The Cathedral became domicile for the bishop (of Bavarian Palatine) in 1816, and was richly decorated inside with huge frescos in Nazarene style. The frescos have been painted by Johann Baptist Schraudolph, however, the 3 biggest ones (each 6,4 x 5,4 m in size !) have been removed (yes !) in 1957, when it was decided to rebuild the Cathedral again to give her back the original Romanesque style.
The paintings are now hanging in a special built room in the Historical Museum of the Palatine (and are worth a visit).

The western façade of baroque style was removed mid 19th century, as if already then it was realized that it does not fit at all to the dimension of the Cathedral. Those days, by architect Heinrich Hübsch, it got it's today's appearance. I'll write more about this in the tips, as the Western section is very much remarkable and worth to have closer looks.

You might understand now that the city had a quite turbulent life since its 2000 years of existence. But luckily, over the time, a lot of old buildings have been conserved and renovated, so that walking through Speyer's Old Town will make you feel as if you are wandering through grand old history.

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the Speyer, I like, and more important, let me give you a short guided tour through the History Museum of the Palatine, to show you that there is another well worth museum, apart from the Technical Museum (which I refrain to write about, as it is already enough in here).

• Pros:Stunning Cathedral, lovely hotels and restaurants, interesting museums, marvellous old town centre, very friendly people
• Cons:simply nothing !
• In a nutshell:History and Mediterranean flair :-)