Everything about Mainz Cathedral totally explained
Mainz Cathedral, formally known in English as
St. Martin Cathedral (in German
Mainzer Dom, sometimes
Der Hohe Dom zu Mainz) is located near the historical center and pedestrianized market square of the city of
Mainz,
Germany. This
Roman Catholic cathedral is the site of the
episcopal see for the
Bishop of Mainz.
Mainz Cathedral is predominantly
Romanesque in style, but later exterior additions over many centuries have resulted in the appearance of various architectural influences seen today. It comprises three
naves and stands under the patronage of
Saint Martin of Tours. The eastern
quire is dedicated to
Saint Stephen.
The interior of the cathedral houses tombs and funerary monuments of former powerful
Electoral-
prince-archbishops, or
Kurfürst-Erzbischöfe, of the diocese and contains religious works of art spanning a millennium. The cathedral also has a central courtyard and statues of
St. Boniface and
The Madonna on its grounds.
Construction of the Romanesque cathedral
St. John's Church, then St. Salvator, consecrated in
911 by Archbishop
Hatto I, served as the cathedral for the Bishop of Mainz until the appointment of
Willigis as Archbishop of Mainz in 975.
Willigis' new cathedral
During Willigis' time, the city of Mainz flourished economically. Willigis became one of the most influential politicians of that time, he even was regent of the empire between 991 and 994. He ordered the construction of a new cathedral in the pre-Romanesque
Ottonian architecture. This new and impressive building was part of Willigis' vision of Mainz as the "second Rome".
This new cathedral was to take over the functions of two churches: the old cathedral and St. Alban's, which was the largest church in the area, belonging to a benedictine Abbey and being the burial ground for the bishops and other nobles, including
Fastrada, a spouse of
Charlemagne. Most of the
synods and other important meetings were held at St. Alban's Abbey.
The new cathedral consisted of a double
chancel with two
transepts. The main hall was built in the typical triple-
nave "cross" pattern. Common for that time no
vault was included due to structural obstacles concerning the size of the building. Six towers rose from the church. A cloister was enclosed in the structure and a small freestanding church, St. Mary's Church connected by a
colonnade. This small church developed later into the
collegiate church St. Maria ad grada (at grades).
Sandstone was used as the primary building material for the cathedral. The inside of the cathedral was plastered white under the Archbishop Bardo, probably in the middle of the 10th century. Under renovations ordered by
Henry IV in the late 11th century, much of the outside was plastered, but the
cornices were left exposed in their original red and yellow. It is believed that the coloring of the cathedral was changed more times, but no further documentation of the coloring is available until
Baroque records.
The cathedral suffered extensive damage due to a fire on the day of its inauguration in
1009. Archbishop Bardo von Oppertshafen presided over the completion of the cathedral begun under Willigis. By
1037 the main portions of the body of Mainz Cathedral were complete. Willigis was buried in the second church he'd initiated,
St. Stephan in
1011.
The two chancels
The reason for building two chancels isn't entirely clear. Many scholars suggest that there's some symbolic significance, such as
empire and
church, or
body and
spirit, but no irrefutable evidence for these theories exists. Others claim that the construction has a functional purpose for ceremonial
processions. Whatever the original intent of the double chancel, the eastern chancel came to serve as the location for the mass and the western chancel was reserved for the
bishop and
pontiffs.
Bardo's western chancel
In most cathedrals at the time, the main chancel lay on the east side. Willigis, however, designed his cathedral with the main chancel on the west, presumably modeled after the great cathedrals in Rome, which were constructed this way. (Willigis' design bore a striking resemblance to Old
St. Peter's Basilica.)
The chancel was badly damaged in the fire of
1009, and remained that way under Archbishops
Erkanbald and
Aribo. Reconstruction of the chancel was finally done under Bardo. He then buried his predecessor Aribo there, before the rest of the cathedral was even finished. Willigis' remains are not, as sometimes believed, in the Mainz Cathedral, but rather he was buried in his second construction project, St. Stephen's.
Henry IV's eastern chancel
In
1081, fire once again struck the Mainz cathedral.
Henry IV ordered reconstruction in
1100 in the old
Lombardic style. He had the old flat chancel roof on the east side replaced with a large
apse. The new chancel had a wide
arcade and a small gallery, as well as a triple-nave
crypt. The damaged square tower was replaced by an octagonal
dome. These changes closely resembled the renovations Henry had overseen on the
Speyer Cathedral a few years earlier.
Henry also enacted a few other minor changes, such as raising the transept on the east side and adding openings on the column level. These column-level portals were among the first ever such constructed.
Henry died in 1106, before his intended changes were complete. With his death, the funding for the renovation of the cathedral dried up and so the remaining construction was abandoned. The Mainz Cathedral is considered one of the three
Kaiserdome (Emperor's Cathedrals) of the
Holy Roman (German) Empire, along with the
Worms Cathedral and the Speyer Cathedral.
Evolution of the main hall
Archbishop Adalbert I of Saarbrücken (1110-1137) had a two-story
chapel, called the Gotthard Chapel, built as the official palace chapel next to the cathedral. It is believed that he also ordered the renovation of the main hall, mainly due to similarities between the main hall and the
vault of the new chapel.
Conception for the renovations was again taken from the Romanesque Speyer Cathedral. This time, however, without money from the emperor, the builders lacked the resources to acquire the high-quality
sandstone used in Henry's additions. They instead used
limestone. The other aspects of the renovations were also much cheaper, and the extravagant style of the Speyer Cathedral was largely avoided.
The central
nave was built to an impressive 28 meters, five meters short of the Speyer Cathedral's 33. It seems that the
blind arches were intended to encompass the windows, as in the Speyer Cathedral, but the height of the roof didn't allow this. The resulting three-level effect, due to the arches ending before the windows, was a technique not before seen in architecture.
The main hall was further renovated throughout the entire 12th century. The entire outer wall structure was eventually replaced. Around the year 1200, the ceiling was replaced with a
ribbed vault, a rather new technique for the time.
Additional renovations
Around the time that the ribbed vault was installed it was decided to renovate the western half of the cathedral, which had stayed relatively unchanged since Willigis' construction. In contrast to the eastern renovations done earlier, which were in a high-Romanesque style, these new changes were carried out in a late Romanesque style. A new vault was added to span the north and south arms of the transept. Large windows were added to the wall separating the transept from the main hall. The large dome connecting the transept to the main hall was decorated with
friezes and pillars.
Three small
apses and two very large
pillars were added to support the small flank towers.
Pediments were added to the three open sides of the chancel. In general, the western section of the cathedral was extensively decorated to keep up with the newly renovated eastern section.
Post-Romanesque building and renovation
Already at the time of renovations on the western segment of the cathedral, new architectural styles were being ushered in. This included
Gothic additions and, later,
Baroque pieces as well.
Gothic additions
The first post-Romanesque addition to the cathedral was the western rood screen. This was done in the Gothic style at the time of the western renovations. Following this example, the intersect area was heavily renovated in the next few centuries in the Gothic style.
Starting in
1279, Gothic chapels featuring large decorative windows were built onto the cathedral. In
1418 the Nassauer Chapel, a freestanding burial chapel in the middle nave was built at the request of Archbishop John II of Nassau. The construction of this chapel is attributed to Madern Gerthener, who was also responsible for the Memorial Chapel built into the entrance hall to the western wing of the intersect area.
The towers were also renovated during this period.
Belfries were added to the two towers at the crossings, on the eastern tower in
1361 and on the western in 1418. These towers were topped with Gothic-style pyramid roofs. (These towers turned out to be so heavy that the eastern tower had to be supported by a pillar erected in
1430.)
The
cloister was heavily renovated and the
Liebfrauenkirche was completely replaced at this time, marking the last of the Gothic renovations to the building. The roof on the eastern tower, however, was replaced in
1579 by a flatter one due to weight concerns. After that, no major alterations were made to the cathedral for almost two centuries.
Baroque additions
In
1767 the western cross-tower was struck by lightning and its roof was destroyed. In
1769 the engineer Franz Ignaz Michael Neumann designed a new multi-story roof for the tower. All the towers in the western wing were roofed with this new Baroque stone design, although care was taken to preserve the previous styles as well. The pinnacles of the pediments on the chapels were replaced with urn-like structures. The famed
weathervane, called the
Domsgickel, was added at this time as well.
The inside of the cathedral was heavily whitewashed. A statue of St. Martin was erected on the roof of the western chancel in 1769.
19th century reconstruction
The
Archbishopric of Mainz suffered heavily in the late 18th century. Following the invasion by French revolutionary troops in 1792, Mainz came under attack from
Prussian troops in 1793 in the
siege that led to the end of the
Republic of Mainz. This attack damaged large portions of the cathedral, particularly the east wing, the cloister, and the
Liebfrauenkirche, which was demolished in 1803 (the year after Mainz lost its archbishopric and became a regular
diocese). The cathedral was used as an army camp for several years, and therefore large amounts of the cathedral's
artifacts were sold, the wooden interior was burned for heat.
Bishop Colmar (
1802-
1818), with support from
Napoleon, set into motion restoration efforts. These efforts were interrupted by quartering needs for the French Army in
1813, and the cathedral was used as a church in
1814 for the first time in eleven years. By
1831, the reparations had been for the most part completed. The major change to the building was an iron
cupola on the main eastern tower built by architect
Georg Moller. But this cupola was removed in
1870 because it was too heavy.
After that,
Pierre Cuypers undertook a lengthy restoration work. The support pillar in the eastern cross-tower was removed, as the heavy belfry no longer stood. The crypt in the eastern chancel was rebuilt, but not to the original specifications of the one built by Henry IV. At the conclusion of these reconstructions, a
neo-Romanesque tower was erected in place of the eastern cross-tower in
1875.
At this time the cathedral was once again repainted. Large and colorful
murals, including some by
Philipp Veit, were painted to decorate the inside of the cathedral.
20th century restorations
Conservation efforts began in the 1900s to save the cathedral from further damage. The correction of the
Rhine river resulted in a lowering of the groundwater, the wooden substructures became rotten and the fundaments started to fail and needed to be replaced. Beginning in
1909 the old foundations were underpinned. Works stopped in
1916 due to
World War I. Between
1924 and
1928 the fundaments were completely reinforced by a new fundament made of
concrete. Concrete and
steel were used to anchor the towers and main vault.
A new floor, made of red
marble, was constructed in this period. Architect
Paul Meyer-Speer engineered a system to modify the inner walls with colorful sandstone, removing most of the paintings by Veit and restoring a look similar to the original Willigis-Bardo construction. Unfortunately this system didn't withstand continuing restoration efforts, and by
1959 most of the color was gone.
In
World War II, Mainz was a target of
Allied bombing multiple times. The cathedral was hit several times in
August of
1942. Most of the roofs burned, and the top level of the cloister was destroyed. The vault, however, withstood the attacks and remained intact. The damaged elements were restored as authentically as possible, a process which continued well into the
1970s. In addition, much of the glass in the cathedral was replaced.
The outside of the cathedral was colored red to match the historical buildings of Mainz. In addition, extensive cleaning and restoration efforts were undertaken, ending in
1975. In that year, the thousandth year since the beginning of the cathedral's construction was celebrated.
In
2001, new efforts were begun to restore the cathedral both inside and outside. They are expected to take from ten to fifteen years.
Emperors and the cathedral
When Mainz was an archbishopric, the cathedral was the official seat of the archdiocese. It was from this cathedral that
Frederick Barbarossa, the
Holy Roman Emperor of the time, officially announced his support for the
Third Crusade on
27 March 1188.
During the Middle Ages, the right to crown German kings (and queens) was given to the Archbishop of Mainz. The crowning in Mainz awarded the monarch the kingdom of Germany, and a subsequent in Rome granted him the Holy Roman Empire (a nominal difference only). Because the cathedral was damaged several times, many crownings were not held there.
The following
monarchs were crowned in the Mainz Cathedral:
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