Speyer - Cathedral

Speyer had a great birthday party in 1990 (2000 years!), but still was a small town with a population of only 500 about 1000 years after the foundation.

Speyer gained importance, when the Salian dynasty entered the political stage with Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II. He commissioned the construction of of this church, known as the "Imperial Cathedral of Speyer". Actually this was planned by Conrad II as the largest cathedral worldwide as a display of imperial power (this is before the "Investiture Controversy"). The cathedral was completed 1106, the year Conrad´s grandson Henry IV died. The cathedral is the burial site for the Salian emperors, so we will meet Conrad II, his son, grandson and some of their Staufer and Habsburg collegues again.

The westwork, seen here - is pretty new. After heavy damage during the "Nine Years' War" (1688–97) the cathedral got a baroque facade in the 1770s. This got demolished and replaced by this neo-romanesque westwork in the 1850s.

As the history of the cathedral is really complex, I add the Wikipedia-links here:

english:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speyer_Cathedral
french:
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cath%C3%A9drale_Notre-Dame-de-l%27A...
german:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speyerer_Dom

"Europaeische Stiftung Kaiserdom zu Speyer" has a very good website, but only in German:
www.dom-speyer.de/index.html