Mainz Cathedral: The Romanesque Imperial Cathedral of Mainz
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- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
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- German, Holy Roman Empire, Roman
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- Religious
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- Cathedral
On this page20 sections
History
Mainz Cathedral, formally the High Cathedral of St Martin, is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Mainz, Germany, built principally in Romanesque forms with later Gothic and Baroque additions. Its principal patron is Martin of Tours, while the eastern choir is dedicated to St Stephen. Together with the cathedrals of Speyer and Worms, it forms one of the three Rhenish imperial cathedrals.
Early Christianity and the Old Cathedral
A Christian community existed in Mainz by the fourth century. During the sack of the city in 368, Ammianus Marcellinus described Christians celebrating a festival probably associated with Easter. The first securely attested bishop was Sidonius, who died after 580, and his church was already dedicated to Martin of Tours, a fourth-century bishop and missionary whose cult became especially important in the Frankish world.
The earliest cathedral complex remains uncertain. A proposed group consisting of an episcopal church, a pastoral church, and a baptistery has not been proven. Beneath the neighboring Johanniskirche, however, archaeologists found a wall, floor remains, and a sarcophagus associated with the building later called the Old Cathedral. The late antique abbey church of St Alban, about 75 metres long, was the archdiocese’s principal church before the present cathedral. It hosted major synods and assemblies and became the main burial place of Mainz archbishops.
Mainz became an archbishopric in 745. Its archbishops were leading ecclesiastical and political figures in the Holy Roman Empire, served among the imperial electors, and for a long period held the title Primate of Germany, meaning the papal representative in the German part of the empire. Since the nineteenth-century reorganization of the diocese, the cathedral has served the Diocese of Mainz, subordinate to the Archdiocese of Freiburg.
The foundation of the imperial cathedral
Archbishop Willigis, who took office in 975 and also served as imperial archchancellor, commissioned a new cathedral in the Ottonian period, the age of the Saxon emperors descended from Otto I. Ottonian churches often expressed imperial authority through large-scale architecture and formal connections with Rome. Willigis’s cathedral was conceived as an imperial state church rather than primarily as a parish building. It represented the political standing of the archbishop, his role in royal coronations, and the idea of Mainz as a “Second Rome,” with Old St Peter’s in Rome as an important model.
The beginning of construction is uncertain. A date around the end of the tenth century, possibly about 998, has been proposed, while a building period of roughly thirty years would place completion around 1009 or 1010. The claim that Willigis began the project specifically to preserve Mainz’s coronation privilege remains unproven. He built on open ground beyond the contemporary urban centre, above remains of a Roman settlement probably abandoned during the Frankish period. Roman walls lie beneath the cathedral, but the earlier idea that the building stood on a Roman temple has been disproved.
The Willigis cathedral was severely damaged by fire on 29 August 1009, the planned day of its consecration. Another tradition preserves 28 August as the date. Torches or other lighting used during the celebrations may have caused the blaze. Under Willigis’s immediate successors, Erkanbald and Aribo, the cathedral remained unfinished. Archbishop Bardo completed it, and it was consecrated on 10 November 1036 in the presence of Emperor Conrad II. Aribo became the first archbishop buried in the cathedral, in its unfinished western choir; Willigis was buried at St Stephen’s Church, another foundation of his.
The open colonnades and original forechurch were not rebuilt after the fire. Instead, the cloister and collegiate buildings were established around the cathedral. The neighboring Old Cathedral, probably the church later known as the Johanniskirche, may have preceded or accompanied the Willigis project. A sarcophagus found there in 2019 contained a high-ranking ecclesiastical burial dated by radiocarbon analysis to around the year 1000, with an uncertainty of twenty years. The deceased has not been identified, although tradition connected the Old Cathedral with Archbishop Erkanbald, who held office from 1011 to 1021.
Imperial rebuilding and medieval completion
A second major fire in 1081 badly damaged the cathedral. Around 1100, Emperor Henry IV sponsored a reconstruction influenced by Lombard architecture. Henry IV was a Salian ruler of the Holy Roman Empire whose patronage also affected major cathedral projects at Mainz and Speyer. His death in 1106 interrupted the work, and the Lombard builders known as the Magistri Comacini left Mainz before the reconstruction was complete.
The rebuilding transformed the eastern end. A large apse replaced the earlier termination, the eastern transept was enlarged, and a presumed square tower gave way to an octagonal dome. Work also began on a three-aisled hall crypt, although this plan was probably abandoned in favour of a continuous floor level. Archbishop Adalbert I of Saarbrücken, in office from 1110 to 1137, commissioned the two-storey Gotthard Chapel beside the cathedral and probably directed part of the nave’s rebuilding. When imperial support ended, nearby Weisenau shell limestone was used for the nave instead of the finer sandstone brought from the Spessart and Haardt regions for the eastern choir.
In 1159, during an uprising against Archbishop Arnold, Mainz citizens stormed and devastated the cathedral. Arnold was killed the following year, but construction of the nave continued through the twelfth century. Its vaulting began around 1190 and was finished around 1200. Between 1200 and 1239, the western part was rebuilt in the late Romanesque style of the Lower Rhine. Archbishop Siegfried III of Eppstein consecrated the completed cathedral on 4 July 1239, a date that became its official dedication festival. The sacristy beside the western choir was begun around 1240.
Further medieval work added Gothic side chapels along the nave from 1279 onward. The Gothic cloister was rebuilt between 1390 and 1410. Archbishop Johann II of Nassau commissioned a two-storey funerary chapel before the eastern choir in 1417 or 1418, of which the underground Nassau Lower Chapel survives. The eastern crossing tower received a Gothic bell stage from 1361, and work on the western tower began in 1418. The towers were completed in 1482. The eastern tower’s steep spire was replaced with a lower octagonal top in 1579.
Coronations, worship, and artistic change
The cathedral’s medieval political importance was expressed through royal coronations. Agnes of Poitou was crowned there in 1043, followed by Rudolf of Rheinfelden, the counter-king of Henry IV, on 26 March or 7 April 1077. Matilda, later the wife of Henry V, was crowned on 25 July 1110, Philip of Swabia on 8 September 1198, Frederick II on 9 December 1212, and Henry Raspe on 22 May 1246. The coronations of Henry II in 1002 and Conrad II in 1024 probably took place in the neighboring Old Cathedral. In 1184, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa celebrated the knighting of his sons in Mainz during Pentecost, in connection with a great imperial assembly on the Maaraue.
The cathedral’s double-choir arrangement, with liturgical choirs at both ends of the central axis, is now generally understood in liturgical terms. It enabled solemn processions between the eastern and western choirs. Both were initially used equally; later, parish masses were concentrated in the east, while episcopal and collegiate services used the west. The theory that the two choirs represented spiritual power in the west and imperial power in the east cannot be demonstrated.
The Benna Cross, a wooden triumphal cross covered with gold plates and bearing an over-life-size solid-gold figure of Christ, was financed by Willigis from tribute revenue. Between 1141 and 1160, archbishops dismantled and melted it piece by piece to support ecclesiastical administration. Master Berenger made the surviving bronze doors for Willigis. Their inscription describes them as the first metal doors made since the age of Charlemagne. Originally installed at the Liebfrauenkirche, they formed part of the ceremonial entrance for rulers arriving by river. In 1135, Adalbert I had the city privilege he granted engraved on their upper sections. After the Liebfrauenkirche was demolished in 1803, the doors were moved to the cathedral.
The western Gothic choir screen, made by the Naumburg Master during the late Romanesque rebuilding, showed the Last Judgment. It was dismantled in 1682 during post-Tridentine liturgical reforms. Most fragments are preserved in the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum, while the Bassenheim Rider, a relief of St Martin, is in St Martin’s Church at Bassenheim. Swedish forces partly plundered the cathedral after occupying Mainz in 1631. Some of the former treasury is now in museums in Uppsala, while altarpieces by Matthias Grünewald were lost when the ship carrying them sank in the Baltic.
Fire, war, and conservation
Lightning struck the western crossing tower on 22 May 1767, burning its spire and most of the cathedral roofs. Franz Ignaz Michael Neumann replaced the spire in 1769 with a multi-storey stone structure and rebuilt the western roofs in stone to reduce the risk of fire. He also redesigned the western flank towers. Baroque alterations removed the Gothic gables of the side chapels and replaced their pinnacles with urns. The interior was painted white and fitted with colourless windows in 1758, while Rococo choir stalls were installed in the western choir between 1760 and 1765.
Prussian bombardment badly damaged Mainz Cathedral in 1793, especially the eastern group and cloister. After the Liebfrauenkirche was demolished in 1803, the cathedral was used as a military camp, storehouse, and magazine. Furnishings were sold, and wooden material was burned. Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar, supported by Napoleon, prevented demolition and restored the building to ecclesiastical use. In 1813, the French Grande Armée requisitioned it again as a pigsty and military hospital for as many as 6,000 soldiers, some suffering from typhus. Worship resumed in November 1814, and repairs continued until 1831.
Georg Moller rebuilt the roofs and damaged eastern tower and placed an iron Gothic-style dome on the eastern bell stage in 1828. The dome and bell stage were removed in 1870 because their weight was linked to cracks in the masonry and because the dome was unpopular. P. J. H. Cuypers built the present Neo-Romanesque eastern crossing tower in 1875 and reconstructed the eastern choir crypt between 1872 and 1876. Philipp Veit and other artists of the Nazarene school, a nineteenth-century movement reviving medieval and early Renaissance religious art, painted the interior between 1859 and 1864. Most of their work was removed during the restoration of the 1920s.
Lowering of the groundwater level after the Rhine riverbank was raised, together with the installation of rain gutters, caused the wooden pile foundations to decay. Conservation began in 1909. From 1924 to 1928, the cathedral was placed on concrete foundations, while vaults and towers were secured with concrete and steel anchors. Load-bearing sprayed concrete strengthened the upper nave walls. This restoration introduced the present reddish, marble-like floor of nodular limestone and removed most of Veit’s paintings. Paul Meyer-Speer developed a colour scheme based on the natural tones of the sandstone. The colours were partly subdued in 1958–1960, when the vault caps were painted white.
Bombing during the Second World War destroyed the upper storey of the cloister and burned most cathedral roofs in August 1942. Further damage followed on 8 September 1944 and 27 February 1945, although the vaults survived. Restoration of the exterior and interior continued into the 1970s, after which the exterior was painted red with mineral colours. A comprehensive campaign beginning in 2001 treated the entire building. The Gotthard Chapel was renovated in 2009–2010, and the western tower spire was replaced in July 2013 with a historically faithful copy. The roof statue of St Martin, renewed in red sandstone in 1928, received a replacement head carved from red Main sandstone from Dietenhan in June 2024.
Remains
Mainz Cathedral is a three-aisled Romanesque pillar basilica with Gothic and Baroque additions. Its eastern and western choirs are joined by a five-bay basilican nave, a longitudinal central space flanked by lower side aisles. The nave follows a bound system in which each main-nave bay corresponds to two narrower side-aisle bays. The building measures approximately 116 metres externally and 109 metres internally. The nave is about 53 metres long, the main nave is approximately 13.6 metres wide and 28–29 metres high, and the western tower reaches about 83–83.5 metres.
Eastern choir and medieval extensions
Eastern choir
The eastern choir belongs principally to the rebuilding sponsored by Henry IV around 1100. Its semicircular apse has large blind arcades and an upper arcaded gallery characteristic of the Upper Rhine. Above it rises a gable with five niches. The eastern crossing is covered by an octagonal dome expressed externally as a tower. A Gothic buttress was inserted into the eastern choir after 1430 to support the heavy eastern bell stage and was removed after that stage was demolished in 1871.
Nave and side chapels
The present nave replaced the Willigis-Bardo nave apart from parts of its foundations. Its three-level elevation consists of the main arcades, a zone of blind arcades suggesting a triforium, and the upper clerestory windows. The side aisles have Romanesque groin vaults, formed by intersecting barrel vaults, while the main nave has pointed rib vaults introduced around 1190–1200. Gothic side chapels were added successively along the north and south sides from 1279.
Nassau Lower Chapel
The Nassau Lower Chapel lies beneath the eastern part of the main nave and measures about 7.5 by 6.6 metres. It is the surviving underground portion of the funerary chapel commissioned by Johann II of Nassau in 1417 or 1418. The chapel remains part of Holy Week liturgy because it contains a representation of the Holy Sepulchre.
Gotthard Chapel
The Gotthard Chapel is a square, two-storey double chapel beside the north arm of the western transept. Commissioned by Archbishop Adalbert I, it retains its two-level arrangement and was renovated in 2009–2010. Its upper chapel contains an organ installed by Oberlinger in 1983, with 13 stops on two manuals and pedal and purely mechanical action.
Western complex and cloister
Western choir
The western building was constructed between 1200 and 1239 in the late Romanesque architecture of the Lower Rhine. Its large octagonal crossing dome is decorated inside with blind arcades, round-arched friezes, and carved capitals. The choir consists of a rib-vaulted square followed by a three-apsed trefoil plan. Each angular, three-sided apse is reinforced with buttresses.
The western choir contains Rococo stalls made by Franz Anton Hermann between 1760 and 1765. Their decoration presents the arms of the archdiocese and its dignitaries rather than a biblical sequence. A statue of St Martin crowns the bishop’s canopy, while St Boniface and Willigis terminate the side wings. The western crypt, built beneath the western crossing in 1927–1928, has served as the burial place of Mainz bishops and auxiliary bishops since its construction.
Cloister and Memorial Chapel
The present cloister stands on the south side of the cathedral. It is a Gothic, three-winged, two-storey structure rebuilt between 1400 and 1410. Beside the western end of the south transept, the Memorial Chapel, or Memorie, was built between 1210 and 1230 as the chapter house, the meeting room of the cathedral community. It is a square room about 12.2 metres on each side, covered by a single rib vault. The Nikolaus Chapel adjoins the cloister and Memorie and displays the cathedral treasury.
Portals, furnishings, and memorials
Market Portal and bronze doors
The north Market Portal is a late Romanesque structure from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its tympanum shows Christ within a mandorla, an almond-shaped frame, attended by angels. The bronze Willigis Doors now serve as the portal doors. Their earlier position at the Liebfrauenkirche is reflected in their role as a ceremonial entrance for rulers arriving by river.
Marian Altar and baptismal font
The late Gothic Marian Altar includes the “Beautiful Mainz Woman,” accompanied by St Martin and St Boniface. These figures date from the early sixteenth century, while the present shrine dates from 1875 and incorporates later Neo-Gothic elements. A large tin baptismal font in the north transept dates from 1328 and came from the Liebfrauenkirche.
Tombs and crypts
Archbishops and senior members of the cathedral chapter were buried and commemorated within the building. Their monuments range stylistically from Gothic and Renaissance work through Baroque, Rococo, and nineteenth-century medieval revival. Important monuments commemorate Peter of Aspelt, Uriel of Gemmingen, Albrecht of Brandenburg, Berthold of Henneberg, Johann II of Nassau, Konrad III of Dhaun, Sebastian of Heusenstamm, and Damian Hartard of der Leyen. The monument to Heinrich Ferdinand von der Leyen is the largest, measuring 8.33 metres.
The eastern crypt contains a shrine of Mainz saints created in 1960 and serves as the destination of an All Saints’ procession after Vespers. The cathedral chapter celebrates the Liturgy of the Hours in the eastern choir.
Organs and bells
Mainz Cathedral has had an organ since at least 1334. The Klais organ dedicated in 1928 had 75 stops on four manuals and pedal. Between 1960 and 2014, it formed the basis of a distributed Kemper organ complex with 105 stops and 7,984 pipes. The eastern choir organ was dismantled in 2021. A new organ in the Marien Chapel, completed in 2021, has 48 stops on four manuals and pedal and stands on a steel platform anchored in the vault above the Market entrance. The eastern choir’s new main organ, dedicated on 21 August 2022, has 93 stops on four manuals and pedal and follows the French Romantic style. A western choir organ remains projected with 62 stops on three manuals and pedal.
The present bell installation contains nine bells. The four-bell foundation was cast by Josef Zechbauer in 1809 in the cathedral cloister, and the preserved wooden frame dates from the same year. The frame was enlarged in 1960, when Friedrich Wilhelm Schilling added four bells and retuned three earlier ones. Another bronze bell was cast in 2002. The Baroque western tower houses the installation, whose twelve ringing combinations serve pontifical Masses, high feasts, requiems, Vespers, chapter services, parish Masses, and the Angelus.
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