Speyer

Ancient cathedral city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Speyer, 26 km/16 mi south of Mannheim; population (1995) 49,600. Industries include electrical engineering, metallurgy, oil refining, and aircraft engineering. It was at the Diet of Spires in 1529 that Protestantism received its name.

Features The Romanesque cathedral contains the tombs of eight German emperors and kings; it was begun by Conrad II in 1030 and was ruined and restored several times. The neo-Gothic Gedachtniskirche commemorates the ‘protest’ of 1529. The Historical Museum of the Palatinate is here.

History The site has been occupied for some 3,000 years; there were Celtic and, later, Roman settlements (Civitas Nemetum) here. The present city was founded by the Franks and it became the seat of a bishopric in the 7th century. At the end of the 13th century it was made a free city of the empire. Fifty diets were held in the city, and from 1513 until 1689 it was the seat of the supreme court of the empire. The term ‘Protestant’ comes from the protest of a group of princes and officials against the Roman Catholic Church's treatment of the reforming priest Martin Luther. The city was devastated in the Thirty Years' War.