SPIRA (SPEYER), DIOCESE of — Copper
basin for holy water with
reliefs (1st half of the 11th century) — Speyer.
on the fourth centenary of his birth (special issue of the Roc.
di filos. moncol.), Milan 1934; T. Moretti-Costanzi, S., Rome
1945; G. Rensi, S., Milan 1945. Further references in W. Zie-
genfuss, Philosophen-Lexikon, II, Berlin 1950, pp. 605–606.
Umberto A. Padovani
SPIRA (SPEYER), DIOCESE of. — City and diocese of
Germany in the Palatinate. It has an area of 5,964
sq. km, with a population of 1,218,165 inhabitants, of whom
558,231 are Catholics, distributed among 307 parishes
served by 529 diocesan priests and 46 religious priests; it has
one seminary, 7 male and 273 fe-
male religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 407).
There is no reliable information concerning the beginnings of Christianity
and the first bishops of S. from the 4th to the 6th century; at the
Council of Paris on 10 October 614, Bishop Hilde-
ric was present (MGH, Concilia, I, p. 192). A regular list begins
with Bishop Basinus (d. in 782); during the Carolingian period
some bishops were also abbots of Wisenburg.
Bishop David is among those to whom a letter from Pope Zachary was
addressed on 1 May 748; Bishop Ge-
b(e)hard is mentioned in a letter from Pope Nicholas I (858–63).
The series of bishops from the end of the 11th century is in MGH,
Scriptores, XIII, p. 219, and is reproduced by L. Duchesne
in Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, II, 2nd ed., Pa-
ris 1910, pp. 163–66. Among the more recent bishops are
Mons. Giov. von Geissel (1836–41), later archbishop of
Cologne; the Benedictine Daniele Bonifazio von Haneberg
(1872–76); and Michele von Faulhaber (1911–17), later arch-
bishop of Munich and Freising and a cardinal.
S. was richly endowed by King Sigebert III in 653,
Childeric II (664–66), Charlemagne (782), and Emperor
Otto I in 969; the emperors of the Salian dynasty
were buried in the Cathedral; the diocese received rich gifts
from Conrad II in 1032, from Henry III in 1056,
and from Henry IV in the years 1063–65, 1074, 1086,
and 1087, when he donated the abbeys of S. Lambert, Lintburch,
Eschinewage, and Hornbach to Bilsenove in the diocese of
Metz. Consequently, the bishops of S. were always favorable to
the Empire, so much so that Pope Gregory VII summoned
Bishop Henry I to Rome in 1074 and suspended him in
February 1075.
The diocese comprised four archdeaconries; until 1803
S. was a suffragan of Mainz; in that year it was sup-
pressed and, restored in 1817, became a suffragan of
Bamberg, after the boundaries of the diocese had been limi-
ted to the left bank of the Rhine, that is, to one quarter of its
former area.
The Cathedral, dedicated to Mary Most Holy and to St. Stephen,
is already mentioned in a charter of King Childeric II (MGH,
Diplomata Merovingica, XXVII, no. 28). The new Cat-
hedral was begun by Conrad II in 1030 and, although
not yet completed, was dedicated in 1061 (MGH, Scrip-
tores, XIII, p. 732). Pope Victor II had buried the emperor
Henry there on 28 October 1056, and the cathedral
became an imperial burial place. But in the 13th century, as
doubts arose concerning its consecration, Bishop Frederick of
Bolanden reconsecrated the Cathedral in 1281. It suffered
several fires and was almost destroyed in that of
1689; but it was always restored. It is one of the most notable
products of Romanesque architecture because of its imposing
plan and its development; it has two opposed apses
and displays Lombard reminiscences in the small external
galleries, the domes, and the bell towers. St. Ber-
nard went to S., during the episcopate of Bishop
Gunther von Henneberg (1146–61), to preach the Crusade.
The Episcopal Archive is rich in documents and charters.
The Cathedral Library was destroyed by a fire in
1689; the episcopal library, very rich, was dis-
persed by the French at the end of the 17th century.
THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF S. GERMANO. — Although the Annales Spirenses state that King Dagobert gave the church of S. Germano to monks (MGH, Scriptores, XII, p. 82), there is no reliable information about this church until the 12th century, when archdeacons are found serving as provosts of this collegiate church, which was plundered in 1422 and 1462; it was transferred to the church of S. Maurizio in 1468 and then destroyed in 1794. Its archive is now in that of Munich (A. Pfeiffer-F. Klinom, Das Statutenbuch des St. German- und St. Moritzstiftes, in Palatina-Almanach, 1925, pp. 21–25).
LA CHIESA DI S. MARIA. - In Hördt, dell'Ordine di
S. Agostino, fu fondata da un tale Ermanno al tempo di
Enrico III. I beni e i diritti di tale chiesa furono con-
fermati nel 1155 dal papa Innocenzo II e dall'imperatore
Federico I; essa fiorì fino al sec. XIV. Nel 1525 fu rovi-
nata e soppressa poi dall'elettore Palatino dal 1557;
nel 1625 il vescovo ne trasferì la fondazione alla par-
rocchia di Philippsburg. Nell'Archivio di Karlsruhe si
conservano alcuni documenti della chiesa: tra questi il
privilegio di Innocenzo II (I. Baumann, Zur Geschichte
von Hördt, Speyer 1909; G. Buindo, Zur Geschichte der
Propstlei Hördt, in Blätter für Pfälzische Kirchengeschichte,
6 [1930], pp. 93-96).
DIETS OF S. — There were two imperial diets held at S. and presided over by Ferdinand, brother of Charles V, which had particular importance in the religious events of sixteenth-century Germany. At the first, in 1526, it was decided: “Until the convocation of a council or a national assembly concerning the matters relating to the Edict published... at the Diet of Worms (1521), we have unanimously resolved and decided to live with our subjects, to govern and to conduct ourselves in such a way that each of us hopes and thinks he can answer before God and His Imperial Majesty.” But the Lutheran princes interpreted this text as granting them full freedom to “reform” religion in the Lutheran sense in their territories.
At the Diet of 1529 (15 March–7 April), an attempt was made to put an end to this manner of acting by proceeding in the opposite direction, and an “Imperial Proposition” was presented, by which the princes were warned that they were forbidden to permit or promote religious innovations “under penalty of forfeiting their States, rights, liberties, and privileges.” After heated discussions, three decisions were adopted: 1) that the condemnation imposed on Luther at Worms in 1521 should have full force; 2) that the Mass absolutely should not be suppressed; 3) that one State should not use force against another under the pretext of religion. The latter, without naming him, struck at the Landgrave of Hesse.
The Lutheran States did not submit to the decisions of the majority and issued a solemn protest, later transformed on 25 April into an “Instrument of Appeal”; hence their designation as Protestants, which became common for those who separated from the unity of the Church (