Spira

Spira was the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer, an ecclesiastical state with scattered lands on both banks of the Upper Rhine. In 1337 Bishop Gerhard von Ehrenberg ruled outside Speyer, which had become a free imperial city.

The bishops moved their residence to Udenheim, later Philippsburg, in 1371 and to Bruchsal in 1723. French armies repeatedly seized Philippsburg and the left-bank lands during the Thirty Years' War and the wars of Louis XIV. The bishopric was secularised in 1803, and its right-bank territories passed to Baden.