Speyer

Speyer was a Free Imperial City on the Rhine, where the bishop had surrendered most of his rights in 1294. In 1337 its cathedral and Jewish community made it a religious centre.

The Jewish community was destroyed in a pogrom in 1349. At the imperial diets of 1526 and 1529, Lutheran worship gained temporary toleration and the Protestation at Speyer gave Protestantism its name. French troops nearly destroyed the city in 1689; after French rule from 1792 to 1814, it became the administrative capital of the Bavarian Palatinate in 1816.