In Germany, we have a saying about combining the agreeable with the useful. Which is what I did this weekend, attending a conference and simultanously doing some sightseeing in the city it took place in, Speyer.




Time used to be when people joked about Speyer that it needed the dead emperors and kings buried there to enliven the city (meaning: nobody would visit were it not for the cathedral and the tombs in same), but in 1982, Helmut Kohl ascended the throne became chancellor, and this meant every visiting head of state or head of government or important religious figure was dragged to his hometurf, the Palatine, which meant Speyer. This, among other things, meant that the city hall got renovated (it looks really pretty now) so there could be receptions, some more money for other renovations (notably the medieval Jewish bath, the Mikwe – more about that later) – and also a boost for the local gastronomy, as Kohl made all his VIP guests consume a favourite Palatine-specific dish, “Saumagen”, pig’s stomach, or would that be pork’s stomach? – Either way, personally, I can’t stand it, but then, I am a Franconian, a Bavarian if you stretch it. Anyway, according to the guy who had the job of showing us conference attendees around, there is a local anecdote that Kohl did this to Francois Mitterand who understandably wasn’t that enthusiastic about consuming Saumagen until Kohl whispered something in his ear, and then Mitterand ate it all up, quickly, too. Asked later what he had said, Kohl supposedly answered he said: “Francois, if you don’t eat up we’re going to return the Saarland to you.”

…I’m afraid you probably have to be French or German to find this funny, just trust me that it is. On to more exalted business,to wit, the splendid Salic cathedral Speyer boasts of. This was started by Konrad II (not famous, you don’t have to know him), but he didn’t live to do more than finance just the start; it was finished the first time by his son Heinrich IV. (Pirandello afficiniados might now him?) Then Heinrich IV got into one the most spectacular Emperor versus Pontiff showdowns European history can boast off, had to do the proverbial penance march to Canossa to make Pope Gregory take back his excommunication, returned fuming, and had the entire cathedral pulled down and rebuild ten times grander because he wanted to have the biggest cathedral in Europe, definitely larger than anything in Italy. This resulted in Speyer Cathedral No.2 which was indeed for a time the biggest around, especially since this was when the Romanic style was sill en vogue. Once Gothic style caught on, several competitors for the title showed up. Flash forward to the 17th century, where Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, had his younger brother marry a local princess, Lieselotte von der Pfalz, and under the pretext of claiming her inheritance later invaded the Palatinate. This meant the entire town of Speyer got burned to the ground. The cathedral, while not getting burned entirely, took heavy damage, and took eons to rebuild, resulting in the current version, cathedral No.3. Also, in the 19th century, they had the not to bright idea to polishing the inside up with fake baroque, but once WWII had created its damage, the city fathers used the opportunity to throw all the baroque inside out and restore the cathedral to its Romanic style starting point. Here’s the result, seen from all sides:





















On to the interior. This trumps by size and austerity (ever since the fake baroque got stripped down), and as mentioned boasts of several tombs which are remarkably austere and non-pompous as well, given other rulers’ tendency to go into really expensive monuments to themselves. The Salic emperors, notably Heinrich IV., had intended this church to be their burial ground, and so it was. After the dynasty ended, some of the succeeding ones used it as well, so we have some Habsburgs (a Rudolf and an Albrecht) and some of the Hohenstaufen, to wit, the unfortunate Philip of Schwaben. He got murdered in my hometown, Bamberg, so allow me to feel ever so slightly possessive. Philip was the younger son of Friedrich I. Barbarossa, whose wife is buried here as well, and after Philip’s brother, the Emperor Heinrich, had died in Italy (which not many people regretted, that Heinrich having been one of the more vicious types – you English speaking people might recall him as the guy who put Richard the Lionheart into prison for a while and got a lot of money out of that coup, and mind you, Richard fared spectacularly well when compared to the nobility of Sicily whom Heinrich had killed in true mafia style in Palermo on Boxing Day, the same day his son, the future Friedrich II.. Anyway, Philip then became the next German king but not Emperor, being busy duking it out with his main rival, Otto of Braunschweig (grandson of Eleanor of Aquitaine, btw) for that rank for a few years until he attended a wedding in my hometown Bamberg and got murdered by yet another Otto, Otto of Wittelsbach. Confused yet? Then I’ll spare you the complicated backstory, which involved the family the archbishop of Bamberg hailed from, the House of Meran, and quite a lot of backstabbing intrigue. Suffice to say Philip who by all reports was a far better man than his brother Heinrich died, was brought to Speyer, got entombed there, and his daughter was married off to Otto of Braunschweig in an effort to unite the warring parties. She always had to wonder whether he hadn’t been behind her father’s murder and the actions of the other Otto, and the uniting didn’t work long, either, especially once she died. By then, Friedrich II, Federico II, one of the most fascinating medieval rulers who was a Renaissance person several centuries before the Renaissance, had grown up in Sicily and crossed the alps, finishing Otto off and becoming Emperor. Happy end (of sorts, until there was a new round of Emperor versus Pontiff, but that’s another story.)

This is the sight that greets you once you enter the cathedral:



The tombs. The Emperors are behind, the kings in front.





Back outside again. Other than the cathedral, Speyer offers some lovely streets, though the buildings there are rarely old (thanks to Louis XIV and that burning the entire town thing) - measly two or three centuries for the most part. Very pretty, though. Look!




That is the view from the city hall back to the cathedral, btw, over the Maximiliansstrasse. Since the conference took place inside the city hall, I could enjoy said view a lot. Here’s the other direction:




And the city hall:



At one point, we were in the former archive where today civil unions take place:



Speyer is en route if you want to take one of the most famous pilgrimages, the one to St. Iago de Compostela in Spain. Which is why they put a statue to honour the pilgrims there:



More pretty roads:






The second most famous church in Speyer is a Lutheran one, which has a lovely wooden ceiling and a organ with ca. 3000 pipes, or so our guide swore:



Back to medieveval history. Speyer had one of the largest Jewish communities in the German-speaking territories back then. This came in handy for the Salic emperors for many reasons, not least because they used taxation to get much of the money for the cathedral building out of said Jewish community. At least the Jews got something back, though, because the stone masons contracted for the Cathedral also built the Jewish synagogue and the Mikwe, the bath. Here are the remains of said bath which made it through the ups and downs of history, and you can see the same stones were used as for the cathedral:

Entrance:



Then it goes fifteen metres down. If you’re wondering, this is because they needed “living water” in the middle of the city for the religious cleansing, and that meant accessing the water in the ground.



After going down the stairs, you arrive here:



Where you look down there:




And used to walk down some steps more to enter this water, which incidentally is still living, though it doesn’t look that way:



Today, there is at last a Jewish community back in Speyer large enough to need a big Synagogue again, and as one of the Catholic churches has been empty for years, the city council gave it to the community. How’s that for a cycle?

One last look at an old Speyer building, this time the last remains of what used to be the medieval city wall (yes, le Roi Soleil again):





And now I am back in Munich and suitably exhausted. Will try to tag nonetheless, and hope you enjoyed sharing this look at old Speyer!