Chapter XIV: Worms

This most ancient city was the Vormatia of the Romans. It was devastated by Attila, and reëstablished by Clovis. At the beginning of the seventh century Brunhilda founded the bishopric, and Dagobert established his royal residence here in the years following. Afterward Charlemagne himself made it a resting-place many times, and held many Parliaments here.

In the tenth century Worms became a free city of the Empire, and in 1122 a Concordat was entered into between Pope Calixtus II. and the emperor, Henry V., concerning the ecclesiastical affairs of the city.

It was in the cathedral of Worms that the famous Diet of 1521 was held, when Charles V. declared Luther a heretic, and banished him from the Empire, for which indignity Luther is said to have remarked: "There are at Worms as many devils as there are tiles on the roof of its cathedral."

The city suffered much in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1689 was reduced to ashes by the armies of Louis XIV.

The cathedral of Worms was begun in 996 by Bishop Bouchard, and completed twenty years later by the Emperor Henry II. With its four fine towers and its two noble domes or cupolas, it ranks as one of the really great monuments of Christianity in Germany.

To-day, with its later additions, it is purely Romanesque, though built entirely after 1185, when Gothic was already making great strides elsewhere. Even here there is a decided ogival development to be noted in the vaulting of the nave.

Like the cathedrals at Mayence and Bonn, that at Worms offers the peculiarity of a double apside. The eastern termination is demi-round in the interior and square outside, while the westerly apse is polygonal both inside and out.

The cathedral was the only structure of note left standing in the city after the memorable siege of 1689.

The outline of this cathedral is most involved, with its high, narrow transepts, its two choirs crowned with cupolas and flanked with four lance-like towers. It is a suggestion, in a small way, of the more grandiose cathedral at Mayence, but it is by no means so picturesquely situated.

The portal of the façade shows some fine sculptures of the fourteenth century. One figure has given rise to much comment on the part of antiquaries and archeologists who have viewed it. It is a female figure mounted on a strange quadruped of most singular form, and like no manner of beast that ever walked the earth in the flesh.

It has been thought to be a symbolical allusion to the Queen Brunhilda, and again of the Church triumphant. It may be the former, but hardly the latter, at least such symbolism is not to be seen elsewhere.

The interior is of no special architectural value, if we except the contrast of the ogival vaulting with the Romanesque treatment otherwise to be observed.

There are numerous tombs and monuments, the chief being of three princesses of Burgundy who are buried here.

The church of St. Martin dates from the twelfth century, and Notre Dame from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are in every way quite as interesting as the cathedral, though their walls and vaults have been built up anew since the sacking of the city by the French in the seventeenth century.

The synagogue, recently restored, dates, as to its foundation, from the eleventh century, and is one of the most ancient in all Germany.

According to tradition, a Jewish colony was established at Worms 550 years B.C. This may or may not be well authenticated,--the writer does not know,--but no city in Germany in the middle ages had a colony of Jews more numerous, more venerated, or more ancient.

The Jews of Germany had three grand Rabbis, one at Prague, one at Frankfort, and the other at Worms. By the privilege of the Emperor Ferdinand, the Rabbi of Worms had precedence over the two others. They believed, according to a traditionary legend, that Worms was a part of the promised land, and it was said that the Jews' cemetery at Worms was made of soil brought from Jerusalem.

The wine-growers of Worms have given the name _Liebfraumilch_ to the wine of the neighbourhood, particularly that which is gathered on the hillside gardens of the Church of Our Lady, and within the grounds of the ancient convent.

Near Worms is the ancient abbey of Lorsch, known in the middle ages as Lauresham and Lorse. The abbey was founded and dedicated (767-74) in the presence of Charlemagne, his wife Hildegarde, and his two sons, Charles and Pepin.

The churches of Trèves, of Metz, and of Cologne have, as we know, existed from very early times, and Maternus, an early Bishop of Cologne, is said to have been summoned to Rome in 313 to give his aid in deciding the Donatist controversy.

The oldest of all these Rhenish church foundations is thought to be that of Lorsch, whose bishop, Maximilian, died a martyr's death in the year 285.

The abbey became very wealthy, as was but natural under the patronage of such celebrated benefactors; but it fell a prey to the flames in 1090, and, in spite of immediate restoration, Lorsch never recovered its ancient splendour.

In 1232 it was incorporated with the archbishopric of Mayence, and the former imperial abbey became first, a priory of the monks of the order of Citeaux, and later of the Premonstentrationists.

The fine old twelfth-century church, rebuilt from that of 1100, has to-day become a grange, though only the ancient choir can be really said to exist.

The valuable library of Lorsch was fortunately saved at the Thirty Years' War, and, when the church was devastated by the Spaniards, was transported to Heidelberg.

The monastery at Lorsch is important as marking the transition between the Romanesque and Gothic in a manner not usually associated with the Rhine. One observes it notably in the porch, where the lower range of round-headed arcades is surmounted by a colonnade of sloping angular arches, which are certainly not Romanesque or classical, though, truth to tell, they resemble the clearly defined Gothic of France but little.

To-day the church of Lorsch presents no remarkable architectural features, and is simply an attractive and picturesquely environed building containing a few monuments worthy of note.

In olden times the town was protected by a strong château, constructed in 1348 by the Archbishop of Mayence, but no traces of it are left to-day.