Free Imperial City of Speyer

Origins

Speyer, the Roman Noviomagus, was the burial place of the Salian emperors, whose cathedral rose there from 1030. The burghers gradually wrested power from the bishop, helped by Henry V's charter of 1111, and in 1294 the bishop gave up most of his remaining rights, leaving the city self-governing under the emperor alone.

Rule and society

Patricians and later the guilds shared power in the council. The city hosted some fifty imperial diets; at the 1529 diet the Lutheran estates issued the 'protestation' that gave Protestants their name. From 1527 to 1689 the Imperial Chamber Court, the empire's highest court, sat in Speyer. The city turned Lutheran, while the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer kept the cathedral Catholic.

Decline and legacy

In 1689 French troops burned Speyer during the Nine Years' War, and the court moved to Wetzlar. Revolutionary France occupied the city in 1792 and annexed it in 1797. After 1816 it was the capital of the Bavarian Palatinate, and it now lies in Rhineland-Palatinate.