Emperors and Bishops

For the first time Speyer is named as a bishop’s seat in the year 346. During the 6^th and 7^th centuries the first Christian churches and monasteries are built, not only the earliest verifiable church St. German, but also a bishop’s church, the patrons saints named in 662/664 as Stephan and Maria.

Goods and substantial land, customs and ferry levies form the economic basis for Speyer’s bishops who in the 10^th century also receive the rights to mint money. The immunity privilege granted to church and bishops in the year 969 by Emperor Otto the Great and confirmed by Henry IV in 1061 places the town under the protection, control and rule of the bishops. The election of the Salian from the Speyer district, Konrad II, to the German king in 1024, draws town and diocese into the centre of imperial politics. Speyer becomes the spiritual centre of the Salian kingdom.

Further information to the Salian lineage 

The laying of the foundation stone for the new cathedral also gives the decisive impulse for the further development of the town. In the year 1061 the cathedral is consecrated and finally completed in 1111. It is a building which dwarfs all other Romanesque churches in Germany in its monumentality, size and significance, symbolizing Imperial rule and Christianity with the burial place for eight German Emperors and Kings and four Queens.

A large number of events, decisions and meetings underpin Speyer’s role in the history of medieval Europe: Henry IV’s departure for Canossa in 1077, the preachings of Bernhard of Clairvaux and the beginning of the second crusade at Christmas 1141, the handing-over of Richard  the Lionheart to Henry IV in 1193 or Friedrich II’s first journey through Germany in the year 1213.

In 1294 the bishops’ rule ends and Speyer becomes an imperial free town with its own government and administration. Clear, external evidence of this political and economic importance in the empire is the Old Town Gateway from this period, one of the few remains of the town’s fortifications.

At the same time as these great historical events the first Jewish community emerges on the edge of the bishops’ town, under the special protection of Emperor Henry IV and which, in spite of pogroms and persecution has helped to influence the spiritual life of Speyer throughout the ages. Witness to the Jewish culture and everyday life is seen in the remains of the synagogue and Jewish bathhouse as well as in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate which houses burial stones and religious relicts.