Speyer

Speyer, once the Roman camp of Noviomagus, lies on the left bank of the Rhine, and its cathedral, begun under Conrad II from 1030, became the burial church of the Salian emperors. In 1111 Henry V, on the day his father was buried there, granted the citizens the Great Charter of Freedom, the first in Germany to give townspeople personal freedom. The thirteenth century was one of quarrels with the bishop and above all with the cathedral chapter over lordship of the town. In 1349 the guilds won control of the town's government, and the old families of coin-masters had to join the others as one of fifteen guilds.

In the sixteenth century Speyer stood at the centre of German history. Five of the century's thirty imperial diets met in the city, and at the diet of 1529 the protest of the Lutheran princes and cities gave the Protestants their name. The Imperial Chamber Court also sat in Speyer from 1527.

In the Thirty Years' War the walled but poorly defended city served as refuge, hospital, supply station and camp, and was occupied in turn by Spaniards, Swedes, French and imperial troops; the last soldiers left only in 1650. In 1689, in the War of the Palatine Succession, French troops had the town evacuated and set it on fire. The cathedral alone was meant to be spared.