Romanesque powerhouse on the Rhine — where Holy Roman Emperors were buried for 300 years
Speyer Cathedral (Kaiserdom) is the largest surviving Romanesque building in the world, begun in 1030 by Conrad II as a dynastic mausoleum — the crypt holds the remains of eight Holy Roman Emperors and German kings. The cathedral UNESCO inscription recognises it alongside the cathedrals of Worms and Mainz as the three great Salian Romanesque churches on the Rhine. The city's Altpörtel gate-tower and the Jewish ritual bath (Mikwe, 1128) are among Germany's best-preserved medieval structures.
Spira was a Roman garrison town on the Rhine; under the Salian Frankish dynasty it became one of the most politically significant cities in the empire. The Diet of Speyer in 1529 — where Lutheran princes formally protested against the reversal of religious tolerance — gave Protestants their name. The city was almost entirely destroyed by French forces under Louis XIV in 1689 during the Palatinate War; the cathedral survived partly because it was used as a stable. The Jewish community of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz formed the ShUM communities (named from their initials in Hebrew), inscribed as UN…