Speyer Cathedral

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**Speyer Cathedral**¹
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Germany
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii
Identification	#168
Region²	Europe and North America
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	1981 5th WH Committee Session
WH link:	http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/168
1 Name as officially inscribed on the WH List 2 As classified officially by UNESCO

The Speyer Cathedral (officially: Mariendom (Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Steven), but more often called Kaiserdom zu Speyer (Imperial Cathedral of Speyer) ^[1]) in Speyer, Germany is a very large and imposing basilica of red sandstone and the city's most famous landmark, visible for miles around. Built at the instigation of emperor Conrad II in 1030-1061 as his choice of final resting place, it became the burial site of 7 more German emperors and kings as well as some of their wives and a number of bishops. Like other cathedrals built at the instigation of emperors around that time in Germany, e. g. Worms, Mainz, it acquired the name Kaiserdom (Imperial Cathedral).

The building has preserved its original style making it one of the noblest examples of pure and clear Romanesque architecture now extant. A distinctive feature is the colonnaded gallery that goes around the entire building, just below the roofline. The imposing triple-aisled vaulted basilica is the culmination of a design which was extremely influential in the subsequent development of Romanesque architecture during the 11th and 12th centuries. The cathedral’s hallmarks are the balanced distribution of its east and west ends and the symmetrical arrangement of four towers at the corners of the body of the structure formed by the nave and transept.

The Speyer Cathedral has a checkered history, its disasters culminating in 1689, when the soldiers of Louis XIV burned it to the bare walls.^[2] Restored in 1772-1784 and provided with a vestibule and façade, it was again desecrated by the French in 1794; but in 1846-1853 it was once more thoroughly restored and adorned in the interior with frescoes at the expense of king Ludwig I of Bavaria.

The graves of the emperors and kings were originally placed in the central aisle in front of the altar. In the course of the centuries knowledge of the exact location was lost. In a big excavation campaign in 1900 the graves were discovered and opened. Some of the contents, e. g. clothing, can be seen at the Historical Museum of the Palatinate near the cathedral. The restored coffins of the emperors and kings and some of their wives were relocated into a newly constructed crypt open to the public under the main altar in 1906.

The emperors and kings resting in the Speyer Cathedral are:

Conrad II († 1039) and his wife Gisela († 1043)
Henry III († 1056), Son of Conrad II.
Henry IV († 1106), Son of Heinrich III. and his wife Bertha († 1087)
Henry V († 1125), Son of Henry IV.
Beatrice I († 1184), 2. wife of Frederick Barbarossa and their daughter Agnes
King Philipp of Swabia († 1208), son of Frederick Barbarossa
King Rudolph of Habsburg († 1291)
King Adolph of Nassau († 1298)
King Albert of Austria († 1308), Son of Rudolph of Habsburg

Speyer Cathedral

Dimensions of the Cathedral:

Total length of the cathedral: 134 m (from the steps at the entrance to the exterior wall of the east apse)
Width of the nave: 37.62 m (from exterior wall to exterior wall)
Height of the nave at the vertex of the vaults: 33 m
Height of the eastern spires: 71.20 m
Height of the western spires: 65.60 m
Crypt Length: east-west 35 m; north-south 46 m Height: between 6.2 m and 6.5 m

The large cathedral bowl (Domnapf) in front of the west facade formerly marked the boundary between the episcopal and municipal territories. Each new bishop on his election had to fill the bowl with wine, while the burghers emptied it to his health.

The sculpture of The Mount of Olives is located in the south garden, and used to be at the centre of the cloister joined to the southern wall of the cathedral. The Speyer sculptor, Gottfried Renn created the present group of figures in the 19th century, since the original sculpture from the 15th century was destroyed. The outline of the former cloister can be seen as pavement around the Mount of Olives.

In 1981, the cathedral was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List of culturally important sites.^[3]