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St Peter's Cathedral (German: Wormser Dom) is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral in Worms, southern Germany.
The cathedral is located on the highest point of the inner city of Worms and is the most important building of the Romanesque style in Worms. It is closely associated with Bishop Burchard and the high point of Worms' history in the 12th and 13th centuries. It was the seat of the Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Worms until its extinction in 1802, during German mediatisation, whose prince-bishops resided next door in the Bischofshof palace.
After the extinction of the bishopric, it was reduced in status to that of a parish church; however, it was bestowed the title of minor basilica in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.
Most of the cathedral was finished by 1181, however the west choir and the vaulting were built in the 13th century, the elaborate south portal was added in the 14th century, and the central dome has been rebuilt.
Great events associated with the cathedral include the nomination of Leo IX as Pope in 1048, the Concordat of Worms which ended the Investiture controversy in 1122, the marriage of Emperor Frederick II to Isabella of England in 1235 and the Diet of Worms in 1521, during which Martin Luther was condemned as a heretic.
St Peter's Cathedral is located on the highest hill in the city. Since this hill was safe from flooding, it has been inhabited by people since the third millennium BC. Celtic inhabitants were succeeded by the Germanic tribe of the Vangiones, after whom the area around Worms received the name Wonnegau. They were conquered by the Romans who established a commercial centre and temple area on the hill. The decline of the Roman Empire led to the abandonment of the Roman garrison at Worms in 401. Twelve years later, the Burgundians took over Worms after they were settled within the empire by the Romans with the task of protecting the empire's borders. When they sought to shake off Roman overlordship in 435, they were defeated in battle by the Romans.
After the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, the Franks came into the Rhine valley and took over Worms by force. At the same time they converted to Christianity. When the Frankish realm was divided into three parts under the Merovingians, Worms belonged to Austrasia. After the rulers of Austrasia and Neustria married each other's sisters, a war broke out, which led to the death of both rulers and one of the sisters. The widow of the Austrasian ruler, Brunichildis lived at Worms around 600 AD. She and her successor, Dagobert I had a church built on top of the foundations of the Roman forum, according to medieval sources. This church was a predecessor of the current building. There is no archaeological evidence for this church. Excavations carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century suggest a larger predecessor build which (given its size) was probably Carolingian. Whether this was an expansion of a Merowingian building or not, is unclear.
Berthulf was the first known Bishop of Worms in 614. A new church was laid out, with the dimensions of the current building, under Bishop Burchard of Worms at the beginning of the 11th century. He succeeded in persuading the Salians to abandon their fort in the city, on which he erected the Paulus Stift from 1002/3. The old cathedral was demolished and the construction of the new one occurred simultaneously. It was a cross-shaped basilica with two semicircular choirs, built on an east–west orientation. In 1018, the cathedral was consecrated in the presence of the Emperor, but the western part of the building collapsed only two years later and had to be rebuilt. The church had a flat wooden roof. According to Burchard's biography, the cathedral was magnificently furnished in the 1030s and 1040s. Thus there is mention of columns with golden capitals (which cannot have been the church's main columns). Most likely, Burchard's cathedral was a pier-basilica, since no remains of columns (difficult to acquire in the 11th century anyway) have been found.
Only the foundations of the west towers and the treasury north of the choir, which was probably built at the end of the 11th century, survived subsequent rebuilding.
In 1110, the cathedral was consecrated for the second time. More damage had probably occurred, whose removal was followed by this renewed consecration.
The rebuilding in the 12th century resulted, essentially, in the current cathedral. Around 1130, probably because of further damage to the building, Bishop Burchard II began the demolition of the church build by his predecessor Burchard I and the construction of a new church. The eastern apse, crossing with cupola and transept with its towers (except of their upper storeys) were completed by him in the period up to c.1144. The nave and the western choir and towers were erected between 1160 and 1181 by his successors, Conrad I and Conrad II. The latter consecrated it on 2 May 1181. With this dating, the time of construction was identical with the first phase of Gothic style, called Primary Gothic. Pointed arch rib vaults were built in Worms Cathedral in time with the first Gothic rib vaults, but with simpler cross sections of the ribs. Besides the application of actual vaulting, the design of the church building was very conservative, even conservative in relation to Cluny III, which was more than forty years older. All gates and windows and the arcades and groined vaults of the aisles have hemicircular arches. This combination of innovative vaults of the tall room sections with Romanesque walls makes the cathedral a major example of Late Romanesque style.
The western choir is lit by a condensed group of four round windows, the largest of them a veritable rose window. The footplan of the western choir is polygonal, outside and inside, the first polygonal choir of a top class church. It even influenced French Gothic; until 1181, and thus throughout Primary Gothic, all apses, ambulatories and chapels of Gothic churches had had semicircular footplans, but since 1185, with the second choir of Pontigny Abbey, most Gothic churches were built with polygonal apses, ambulatories and chapels.
The top storeys of the towers were built after the consecration and show some Gothic details.
Several religious buildings of the area are modelled on the cathedral's decoration, such that one can speak of a "Worms Style." Additionally, the elevation resembles the imperial cathedrals in Speyer and Mainz. The gradual progress of the rebuild can be charted with dendrochronology. Lamps were donated for the west choir in 1172 and Bishop Conrad II was buried there in 1192.
About a hundred years after the third consecration, the construction of the Chapel of St Nicholas was begun. A new south portal was built, east of which two more chapels for St Anne and St George were built in the first quarter of the fourteenth century.
In 1429, the northwestern tower scrolled due to an earthquake. It was rebuilt until 1472, with all Gothic details, but strictly in the shape of scrolled tower. Thus it is an extremely early example of conserving restoration. Nevertheless, there was a change of materials, nearly half of the outer walls were built of brick, in colour not very different from the reddish sandstone of the other walls of the cathedral.
The Aegidius chapel (St Giles chapel, nowadays St Mary chapel) was built adjacent to the eastern part of the north aisle, in 1480/1485.
Towards the end of the century, under Bishop Johann von Dalberg, the original Romanesque cloisters (west of the Chapel of St Nicholas) were renovated, resulting in five monumental late Gothic reliefs on the life of Jesus which are now located in the north side-aisle of the cathedral: Tree of Jesse (1488), Annunciation (1487), birth of Christ (1515), entombment (c.1490) and the resurrection (c.1490). A sixth relief depicting the crucifixion was probably lost in the destruction of 1689. In the Andreasstift (Worms) there are four large round keystones about 88 cm (35 in) in diameter decorated with coats of arms, which derive from the cloisters and were donated by Bishop Ruprecht of Regensberg, and Canons Philipp von Flersheim, Erpho von Gemmingen and Wilhelm von Stockheim. Another cloister keystone belonging to the Archbishop of Cologne and cathedral scholaster Hermann IV of Hesse is now located above the entrance of Neuburg Abbey Church in Heidelberg. The foundation stone of the cloisters from the year 1484, which had been thought lost, was found during cleaning in the Dom's lapidarium at the end of February 2014.
The importance of the diocese and the cathedral at Worms derives from the Diet of Worms in 1521. Shortly after the diet, some Worms congregations converted to the teachings of Martin Luther. In 1556, all parishes in the Palatinate followed suit.
During the Thirty Years War, Swedish troops held the city from 1632 to 1635 and the cathedral was used for Protestant services.
In the Nine Years War, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Speyer and Worms were devastated at the command of King Louis XIV. Churches were plundered and, though the attempt to blow up the cathedral failed, it was heavily damaged by fire. Bishop Franz Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuberg had the cathedral restored in 1698. Some baroque elements date to this time, like the windows of the silver chamber and the high altar of Balthasar Neumann.
The renovation of the cathedral was nullified by French Revolutionary troops. At the end of 1792, Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Frankfurt were sacked by revolutionary troops. It served as a stable and a tavern. Between 1818 and 1830 the cloisters were demolished and the stones from it were auctioned off.
A full renovation of St Peter's Cathedral only began in 1886. Because of structural weaknesses and damage suffered in the fire of 1689, the west choir had to be completely rebuilt. Great importance was placed on reusing as much of the original stone as possible. In the outer wall this was taken so far that today all but a small portion of the old stones are in their original locations. On the inside wall, large flat stones had to be used and faithfully reconstructed. The sharply bent dosseret over the central rosette window was not rebuilt since it was blamed for the structural issues. Today the dosserets run perpendicular to the edge of the rosette and frame it clearly. The general renovations, which also included renovation of the chapel of St Nicholas, the reconstruction of the whole floor and the addition of an entirely new crypt for the tombs of the Salians under the high choir, were only completed in 1935.
In the course of the renovation work, in 1920 the head architect, Philipp Brand, was standing on the scaffolding when a dachshund attacked, and attempted to bite him on the leg. He stepped to the side and as a result escaped from a falling stone which had broken loose above him, killing the dog. In the upper left of the south portal, at the edge of the window in the left corner is a statue of the dachshund – Philipp Brand had this installed as a small memorial.
In the Allied bombing on 21 February and 18 March 1945, the cathedral was damaged by a bomb, which did not affect the interior. The roof burned but the vaults remained intact.
The cathedral is a pier-basilica with two choirs and a transept. A central tower is located on the crossing, another over the western choir. Both choirs are flanked by two round staircase towers. The nave is vaulted in various ways: the central aisle has rib vaulting, while the side aisles have groin vaults. The apse of the west choir takes the form of an octagon and is decorated with various rosette windows
As a result of the Oppau explosion on 21 September 1921, nothing remains of the Medieval glass windows.
The contemporary glass of the cathedral is quite varied. As well as simple clear or milky glass in the transepts, are complicated pictorial windows, especially in the chapels, like the coloured glass windows of Heinz Hindorf in the Chapel of Mary, which depict scenes from Mary's life and the Fourteen Holy Helpers (1986–1988), and the Geschichtsfenster (1992) in the Chapel of St George, which depict the history of the diocese of Worms in 20 scenes, from the first known bishop, Victor, in 345 to the destruction of the city in the Second World War. An unusual political statement is found in the depiction of the Biblis Nuclear Power Plant as the Tower of Babel in a series of examples of human sinfulness.
Four Salian princes were buried in the altar space of the Frankish church and were then built over. Another five followed by 1046. These are the ancestors and relatives of Emperor Conrad II:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Worms Cathedral”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.