Medieval Synagogue in Speyer: A Twelfth-Century Jewish House of Worship
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Synagogue
On this page9 sections
History
The medieval synagogue in Speyer, Germany, was built by the Jewish community of Speyer around 1100 and inaugurated on 21 September 1104. It became part of the Jewish quarter established within the city walls after the community’s earlier settlement proved unsafe during the violence of 1096. The ruin is regarded as the best-preserved early twelfth-century synagogue in Europe and as the earliest surviving synagogue in an architectural form that influenced Ashkenaz, the medieval Jewish cultural region of the German-speaking lands, for centuries.
Foundation of the community
The Jewish community of Speyer was established in 1084, when a substantial group from Mainz fled after its quarter had been burned, its members threatened by fellow citizens, and a prominent member of the Worms Jewish community murdered during a robbery. Rüdiger Huzmann, the medieval bishop of Speyer, welcomed the newcomers as a contribution to the city’s growth. He assigned them a settlement outside the city and enclosed it with a protective wall. A first synagogue stood there by 1096.
During the 1096 pogrom, a term for organized anti-Jewish violence, the outer suburb proved insufficiently secure. Bishop John I therefore brought the Jewish community inside the city walls later that year or shortly afterward. A new place of worship was needed, and the second synagogue of Speyer was built on the site of the present ruin.
Rebuilding and expansion
A fire trace in the surviving building has been associated with the 1196 pogrom during the crusade of Henry VI, the German king and Holy Roman Emperor who ruled from 1190 to 1197. The synagogue was rebuilt around 1200. During the thirteenth century, the building was renewed in Gothic forms, and around 1250 the community added a women’s synagogue, a separate women’s prayer hall, to the south.
In 1354, the women’s synagogue was vaulted and given a two-aisled, four-bay interior, while its east wall was renewed. Further alterations followed damage associated with the 1349 pogrom. These changes adapted the complex to contemporary needs while preserving its role as a center of Jewish worship and learning.
Decline and archaeological recovery
Repeated expulsions and returns weakened the Jewish community, which had disappeared from Speyer by 1529 at the latest. The former synagogue was secularized and used as a municipal arsenal. It was partly dismantled and then destroyed in the 1689 city fire during the War of the Palatine Succession, a late seventeenth-century conflict that affected the region. Substantial portions of the outer walls survived.
Part of the west wall was demolished in 1899, and two windows recovered during the work are preserved by the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer. Extensive archaeological excavations took place between 1965 and 1968, after which the grounds were landscaped. Excavations in 1997 and 1998 revealed the foundations of the attached yeshiva, a Jewish institution devoted primarily to studying religious law and traditional texts.
The synagogue forms part of the Speyer Judenhof ensemble and lies within the UNESCO World Heritage property of the SchUM Sites. This heritage network comprises the medieval Jewish sites of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz, whose communities formed an important Jewish network in the Rhineland. The name SchUM derives from the initial letters of the cities’ traditional Hebrew names.
Remains
The surviving complex is organized around the remains of the main synagogue, the adjoining women’s synagogue to the south, and the yeshiva attached to the east wall. The main building was a single-nave hall with a flat roof. Small ashlar blocks were used for its walls, while the women’s synagogue was built of brick. Small traces of exterior plaster indicate that the buildings were probably rendered.
Synagogue complex
Main synagogue
Substantial portions of the main synagogue’s east wall and part of its west wall remain standing, together with sections of the enclosing walls. The building originally had round or eye-shaped windows, called oculi, in both gable ends, probably dating from around 1200. The oculus in the east wall survives, and traces of a Torah niche, a recess associated with the placement of Torah scrolls during worship, can also be seen there. Two east-wall windows were later replaced by larger openings as the synagogue was renewed in Gothic forms.
The west wall was reused as the east wall of the house at Judenbadgasse 3 and was preserved in that form. This later use helped retain part of the medieval structure after the synagogue itself had been partly dismantled and damaged by fire.
Women’s synagogue
The women’s synagogue was a separate hall south of the main building. Masonry benches ran along its north, south, and east walls. Its entrance was in the west wall and is no longer preserved. Six partly surviving slit openings in the south wall connected the hall acoustically with an adjoining room, allowing women there to hear the service and coordinate their prayers and singing with it. The hall was vaulted in 1354, producing a two-aisled interior divided into four bays.
Attached yeshiva
A yeshiva was attached to the east wall of the synagogue during the first half of the fourteenth century. It had a square plan and a cross-vault. The structure survives as an archaeological ground monument, meaning that its important remains are preserved below ground rather than as a complete standing building. Its former connections with the synagogue remain visible in the east wall.
