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Speyer Cathedral suffered an even worse fate than Mainz Cathedral. It surpassed the latter in the splendour of the original architectural conception and in the introduction of the large vault after its reconstruction in 1100 and the uniformity of its execution. It is considered the climax of the Early Romanesque period. It consisted of a nave vault, the oldest basilica covered completely with a groin vault, and the crypt, Europe’s largest Romanesque column hall. As opposed to Mainz Cathedral, the monument of central ecclesiastical power in Germany, Speyer Cathedral (p.24–25–26) was to bear witness to the glory of the German Emperor. It was the intention of its founder, Conrad II, for the cathedral to serve as crypt for him and his successors. When he died nine years after the laying of the foundation stone, the tall, three-part crypt, which was supported by a forest of columns and extended beneath the upper church’s choir and transept, had been completed and was ready to receive the sarcophagus. The church’s founder was thus able to make it his final resting place. The proud structure was, however, only fully completed under his grandson, Henry IV, who had to undertake his famous pilgrimage to Canossa in the Italian province of Emilia-Romagna in January 1077 in order to settle his dispute with Pope Gregory and avert permanent excommunication. With the cathedral’s completion, Henry IV erected the most splendid home and place of worship on German soil for the very same church that excommunicated and persecuted him with bitter hatred even after his death. The place, however, was never blessed. Three times it was destroyed by fire (the worst of which was in 1159, but then again in 1289 and 1540), yet always reconstructed.

Fortified Castle of Brunswick (Burg Dankwarderode), Brunswick (Germany), after 1173.

More damage was done to the cathedral, however, by the French troops who attacked the Palatinate in 1689 and burned the cathedral down to its encirclement walls, having robbed the imperial burial sites. The cathedral’s reconstruction was only begun in 1772. Barely was it completed, however, than it was ravaged again by the French and used as a storeroom for their horses’ hay. The cathedral remained in this state of complete abandonment until 1814, when the Palatine was still part of Bavaria. King Maximilian I had this venerable monument of German imperial glory restored and dedicated for worship in 1822. It was treated with even greater care by his successor, King Ludwig I of Bavaria. He not only funded his expensive mistress, the dancer Lola Montez, but also had the west end towers and the vestibule with its domed tower reconstructed. He commissioned the etcher and historical painter Johann von Schraudolph to decorate the interior with a comprehensive series of frescos. Since Heinrich Hübsch, the architect entrusted with the reconstruction of the destroyed parts and the restoration of the entire building, stayed close to the old remnants, the cathedral’s exterior in its current form also gives the impression of a harmonious, complete composition. The only old part apart from the crypt and the naves’ encircling walls, however, is the upper structure at the east end. The picturesque overall effect of its external appearance is still augmented by a narrow gallery, called the dwarf gallery, unique to the Rhineland churches. A dwarf gallery is an open colonnade which in view of the scarcity of exterior ornamentation in Rhineland architecture did certainly not only have a decorative, but primarily a constructive function. This great cathedral became part of UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage in 1981.