Naumburg Cathedral: A Medieval Double-Choir Cathedral in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Margraviate of Meissen
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page30 sections
History
Naumburg Cathedral is a medieval cathedral and present-day Lutheran parish church in Naumburg, Germany, whose principal forms belong to the late Romanesque and Gothic periods. It was formerly the cathedral of the Bishopric of Naumburg-Zeitz, but the Reformation ended its episcopal function and the Catholic diocese was finally dissolved in 1615. The church is especially known for the west choir, its sculpted screen, and the twelve high-ranking lay founders represented there.
Foundation at Naumburg
Around 1000, Ekkehard I, Margrave of Meissen and a leading figure on the eastern frontier of the Holy Roman Empire, established a castle on an elevation roughly 25 metres above the right bank of the Saale near the mouth of the Unstrut. The site stood where major commercial routes met, and the settlement was first called neweburg or Nuwenburg before the name Naumburg became established.
Ekkehard I died in 1002 before the castle and its religious foundation were complete. His sons, the Meissen margraves Hermann and Ekkehard II, later transferred his body and those of his ancestors to the Georgenkloster at Naumburg. They also founded a small collegiate church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the western part of the castle precinct. A Merseburg episcopal chronicle records the foundation in 1021 as a newly established provostship.
In 1028, at the urging of Hermann and Ekkehard II, King Conrad II and Pope John XIX approved the transfer of the episcopal see from Zeitz to Naumburg. The castle was considered more secure, while a collegiate foundation remained at Zeitz. Construction of the first Naumburg cathedral probably began in spring 1029, immediately east of the Marian collegiate church. It was consecrated before 1044 during the episcopate of Hunold of Merseburg and inherited the dedication to Saints Peter and Paul from the former cathedral at Zeitz.
The late Romanesque cathedral
The first cathedral was replaced by a larger late Romanesque building begun around 1210 under Bishop Engelhard, who held office from 1207 to 1242. Work started in the nave, but soon shifted to the eastern parts and then proceeded westward. This change probably reflected extensive alterations to the eastern end for the crypt. The final consecration is dated 29 June 1242 on the basis of an eighteenth-century source.
A hall crypt, a crypt formed as a unified room rather than a series of separate chambers, had already been added to the earlier cathedral around 1160 to 1170. It was incorporated into the later building and expanded eastward and westward. The rebuilding transformed the eastern end while preserving a physical link with the first cathedral.
The early Gothic west choir
Construction of the early Gothic west choir began around 1250, probably at the instigation of Margrave Henry of Meissen, although a start around 1245 is also possible. The choir was probably complete by about 1260. Its workshop then built the first free-standing storey of the northwest tower before moving to Meissen.
The west choir, its rood screen, and its donor statues were made by the workshop conventionally known as the Naumburg Master. This name refers to an anonymous thirteenth-century architect and sculptor, or to the artistic personality of a workshop, rather than to a securely identified individual. The west choir replaced or incorporated the area associated with the earlier Marian collegiate church. The theory that a separate early Romanesque castle church stood there has been challenged because the surviving evidence is insufficient.
The choir’s donor cycle commemorates twelve high-ranking lay founders, eight men and four women connected with the Ekkehardiner and Wettin families. A letter written by Bishop Dietrich II of Meissen in 1249 names eleven founders from three generations, while Naumburg mortuaries add three further names. The statues may have replaced founder tomb monuments abandoned during construction of the late Romanesque cathedral. Their position in the choir could have supported continuing memorial services for the founders of the cathedral and the Ekkehardine collegiate church. Another interpretation is that Margrave Henry commissioned them to demonstrate his protection of the cathedral foundation.
The identities of several figures and the meaning of the cycle remain debated. Wolfgang Hartmann associated some of the figures with the Reginbodonen and identified Count Dietmar as Dietmar of Selbold-Gelnhausen, whom he argued died at the Battle of Welfesholz in 1115. The more usual identification connects Dietmar with a Saxon count of the Billung family who fell in 1048. Hartmann also regarded the Naumburg canon and master Petrus as the principal conceptual initiator of the cycle.
Later medieval changes
Around 1330, the Romanesque eastern apse was replaced by a High Gothic choir. The upper sections of the eastern towers were renewed after a fire in 1532. The late Gothic Three Kings Chapel was completed in 1416 under Bishop Gerhard II of Goch, who served from 1409 to 1422.
The Reformation, the sixteenth-century movement that established Protestant churches in many German territories, changed the cathedral’s institutional role. Nicolaus von Amsdorf was installed at Naumburg in 1542 as the first Protestant bishop in the Holy Roman Empire. After the death of the last Catholic bishop, Julius von Pflug, in 1564, the diocese was administered by the Electors of Saxony and finally dissolved in 1615. The cathedral continued as an Evangelical parish church.
Fire, restoration, and modern conservation
A major fire in 1532 destroyed the cathedral roofs, much of its furnishings, and extensive areas of masonry. The adjacent Marian collegiate church lost its nave and thereafter remained largely ruined. The damage to the cathedral was only fully eliminated during the nineteenth century. After the fire, the lower storey of the Three Kings Chapel served secular purposes including storage, an examination prison, and a fire-engine house.
The eastern towers received Baroque hoods and lanterns in 1711 to 1713. Eighteenth-century Baroque furnishings were largely removed during a purist restoration in 1874 to 1878, which sought to recover a medieval Romanesque and Gothic appearance. Johann Gottfried Werner investigated structural damage in 1870 and 1871 after building components fell in 1868. Under his designs, the northwest tower was remodelled in 1884, losing its Renaissance hood and receiving Neo-Gothic upper storeys. The southwest tower was rebuilt in a corresponding manner from 1891 to 1894.
The cloister court was lowered between 1936 and 1940, and a gate building was erected between the Three Kings Chapel and the Marian church. Comprehensive repairs from 1960 to 1968 included extensive excavations. Parts of the early Romanesque northern cloister were excavated between 1961 and 1965, and archaeological work revealed remains of an earlier chapel incorporated into a former cathedral canon’s residence. After 1989, the roofs of the cathedral and Three Kings Chapel were renewed.
Naumburg Cathedral entered Germany’s World Heritage tentative list in 1998. A 2014 nomination covering the cathedral and the Saale-Unstrut cultural landscape was rejected for revision in 2015 and again in 2017, with a recommendation to concentrate on the cathedral. The reduced nomination was approved on 1 July 2018 after an amendment proposed by Saint Kitts and Nevis, despite an initial negative recommendation from ICOMOS. UNESCO inscribed the cathedral as a World Heritage Site in 2018 under criteria (i), for masterpieces of human creative genius, and (ii), for an important interchange of human values in architecture and monumental arts. The property covers 1.82 hectares with a 56.98-hectare buffer zone.
The cathedral remains an Evangelical parish church. Its historic four-part peal has rung again since 2005, following the renewal of its bell suspension.
Remains
Naumburg Cathedral is a double-choir, three-aisled basilica approximately 95 metres long and 22.5 metres wide. Choirs occupy both short ends of the building, with pairs of towers at the east and west. The nave is separated from each choir by a rood screen, a substantial barrier between the clergy’s choir and the nave that can also carry sculpture, passages, stairs, and access points. Because the two choirs occupy the ends, the principal entrance is on the south side, from the cloister or gate building.
The first cathedral and the Romanesque core
Early cathedral
Excavated remains show that the first cathedral was a smaller three-aisled, cross-shaped basilica. Its choir stopped short of the eastern limit reached by the later Romanesque choir square. Two slightly projecting square towers stood at its western end, with foundations about seven metres east of the present early Gothic west rood screen. Between them was a small apse-ended choir above a crypt, while a straight west wall concealed the apse from outside. The principal portal was probably placed at the southern end of the transept.
Hall crypt
The hall crypt added around 1160 to 1170 is the principal surviving room of the first cathedral. It was incorporated into the later building, then extended eastward and westward during subsequent rebuilding. Its original apse was lost as the cathedral’s eastern parts were transformed.
Late Romanesque structure
The present late Romanesque building is a vaulted basilica with clustered piers, an eastern choir, an eastern transept, a clearly defined crossing, and a three-part crypt. Although the nave was begun first, work shifted to the eastern end, producing the sequence of construction that shaped the cathedral’s present form. A two-bay late Romanesque vestibule is attached to the southern transept arm. It was inserted after the main arrangement had been established, as shown by its interrupted vault ribs and east wall.
West choir and its sculpture
West choir
The early Gothic west choir has a six-part vault and a 5/8 polygonal termination. Its arrangement incorporates the area associated with the earlier Marian foundation and gives the western end of the cathedral a distinct architectural and commemorative focus. The choir contains the principal medieval artistic ensemble, comprising the choir itself, the rood screen, Passion reliefs, Crucifixion group, and donor statues.
West rood screen
The richly decorated west rood screen separates the nave from the west choir. Its portal contains a Crucifixion group, while its reliefs present scenes from the Passion of Christ. At the time of construction, the screen separated the cathedral clergy from other users of the church. Its capitals and the foliage carved on the rear of the choir stalls include highly naturalistic plant forms, several of which can be identified botanically.
Donor statues
Twelve life-sized donor statues stand beneath an arcade frieze in the west choir. They represent eight men and four women from the high nobility, including Ekkehard II and Uta, Hermann and Reglindis, Dietrich of Brehna, Gepa or Adelheid, Gerburg or Berchta, Konrad of Landsberg, Dietmar, Sizzo, Wilhelm of Camburg, and Timo of Kistritz. Several identifications remain disputed.
The figures are carved from Grillenburg sandstone. Ten are integrated with the walls and two stand freely. Their clothing represents materials such as woollen cloth and leather, while weapons, facial features, gestures, and postures are rendered with striking individuality for the mid-thirteenth century. The sculptures were originally painted in several colours, although much of the visible paint belongs to restoration campaigns from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Shields and inscriptions identify several figures, including Ekkehard II, Dietmar, Wilhelm, and Timo. Timo’s inscription states that he gave seven villages to the church. The placement of lay people in a position otherwise generally reserved for saints is an exceptional feature of thirteenth-century European sculpture.
Eastern choir and towers
High Gothic eastern choir
The high Gothic eastern choir consists of a transverse rectangular bay ending in a 6/10 polygon. Large figures of the cathedral’s patron saints stand on the buttresses at the choir apex and immediately to its south. These figures have been repeatedly restored or renewed. The choir retains stained-glass windows from its construction period, showing the wise and foolish virgins, virtues, and prophets. Other windows, dating from the first third of the fifteenth century, depict the Passion, episodes from the life of the Virgin, apostles, and prophets. A capital on the north wall shows two monkeys playing chess.
Eastern rood screen
Built around 1230 during the late Romanesque rebuilding, the eastern rood screen is the oldest surviving hall rood screen. Its central bay contains a nineteenth-century altar. Steep stairs pass through two small doorways to the choir, combining the screen’s separating function with controlled movement between the two areas.
Towers
The upper storeys of the northwest tower were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while its later Neo-Gothic upper structure dates from Werner’s nineteenth-century remodelling. The eastern towers retain their Baroque hoods and lanterns. Their roofs and upper forms therefore preserve evidence of several rebuilding periods rather than a single medieval design.
Cloisters and associated chapels
Northern cloister and chapter buildings
The older cloister and chapter buildings originally stood north of the cathedral. Excavated remains include parts of the early Romanesque east range, surviving vault springers and transverse arches along the cathedral’s north wall, and remnants of a chapel incorporated into the building at Domplatz 3. This northern cloister probably first served the cathedral canons and later those of the Marian collegiate church.
Southern cloister
A second cloister, largely late Romanesque, stands south of the cathedral. It was not yet present in 1244 and was probably built in the later 1240s. A rib vault was inserted around 1270. The east and north ranges retain much of their late Romanesque form, while the west and south ranges survive mainly as later Gothic or nineteenth-century remains. The southern cloister was built for the cathedral clergy.
Three Kings Chapel
The Three Kings Chapel is a two-storey, two-bay late Gothic structure on the eastern side of the southern cloister. Excavation revealed part of an earlier, slightly smaller two-storey chapel from the eleventh century, including its northwestern corner. The lower room had a small eastern apse and served as a private episcopal chapel. In the later building, the lower chapel was dedicated to Saint Nicholas and the upper chapel, which has a stellar vault, to the Three Kings.
A sculptural Adoration of the Three Kings stands on the chapel’s exterior east wall. The building also displays the Christ cycle commissioned by the canon Immanuel Christian Leberecht von Ampach from artists associated with the Nazarenes. These features form a distinct artistic group within the southern cloister complex.
Marian parish church
The Marian parish church lies southwest of the cathedral on the south range of the cloister. Its surviving High Gothic choir and parts of its outer walls belong to a building in use by 1343. The nave was destroyed in the 1532 fire. The present space, used as a winter church, occupies a gymnasium built there around 1900.
Elizabeth Chapel
The square ground-floor Elizabeth Chapel occupies the northwest tower and is dedicated to Elizabeth of Thuringia. It contains an altar, a statue of Elizabeth dating from around 1235, and three stained-glass windows designed in 2007 by Neo Rauch. The windows show her farewell to her husband before his departure on crusade, her distribution of clothing to people in need, and her care of the sick.
Furnishings, burials, and bells
Altars and the Cranach-Triegel altarpiece
The cathedral’s furnishings were reduced by the 1532 fire, Swedish occupation, and extensive Baroque remodelling. The high choir retains the principal altar, whose stone retable came from the former altar of Saints Felix and Adauctus. Other altars stand in the west choir, on the west rood screen, in the transept arms, at the west end of the southern aisle, and in several chapels. The north-transept altar has a retable from the workshop of Georg Lemberger, while the south-transept altar bears a Marian retable from around 1500.
Lucas Cranach created a Marian altarpiece in 1519 for the stone altar block of the Gothic west choir. Its central Marian image was destroyed during Reformation iconoclasm in 1541, and the surviving side panels were later dismantled and stored. Between 2020 and 2022, Michael Triegel created a new central panel and predella for the panels. The central image is a Sacra Conversazione, a Christian composition in which the Virgin and Child appear with saints in one unified, non-narrative setting, and includes Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The completed Cranach-Triegel altarpiece was installed in the west choir and consecrated on 3 July 2022.
The approximately 3.5-metre-high altarpiece became the subject of a dispute involving art historians, monument conservators, and ICOMOS because it obstructed views of the donor statues. It was dismantled in December 2022 for exhibition elsewhere and temporarily returned to the west choir during Advent 2023. It was subsequently loaned to the church of Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome for two years while a new location was sought. In summer 2025, ICOMOS again judged that the altar impaired the free view of the medieval donor figures and warned that its continued placement in the west choir could endanger the cathedral’s World Heritage status.
Choir stalls and reading desks
The cathedral retains choir stalls from the late Romanesque construction period, additional stalls from the early fifteenth century, and stalls dating from around 1260 that may have belonged to the original west choir. Three fifteenth-century reading desks stand among the older stalls. Two have opposing work surfaces for two users, while the third is designed for one user; all contain partly lockable storage compartments.
Tombs and cemetery
Numerous tombstones survive in the cathedral and cloister, the oldest dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Many show the deceased and most carry inscriptions, providing evidence for the development of funerary sculpture in central Germany from the thirteenth century onward. The historically associated Naumburg Cathedral Cemetery lies immediately beside the building. Its graves and tombstones commemorate several cathedral canons, some of whom also have metal memorial plaques inside the cathedral.
Organ and bells
The present organ was built by the Eule company in 1983. It has 28 stops, two manuals, and a pedal, with the couplers II/I, I/P, and II/P. It also includes six setter combinations and controls for Organo pleno, reed cancellation, and the swell box of the Brustwerk. The historic four-part peal has rung again since 2005 after its bell suspension was renewed.
