Bamberg

Bamberg, also known as Franconian Rome, is an ancient city situated in a fertile valley on seven hills between two branches of the Regnitz River in Bavaria in the south-eastern part of Germany. It has approximately 78,000 inhabitants.

The historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. The charming houses on the banks of the river, once inhabited by fishermen, are called "Little Venice" (Klein Venedig). In its historic burgher part (Bürgerstadt), the houses are packed together and the town is interwoven with a network of winding streets. Bamberg also has a world rarity in the form of the original Gothic town hall, which stands on a bridge in the middle of the river. The town hall was rebuilt in Baroque style in the mid-18th century. Near the Old Town Hall stands the ring-shaped building of the Geyerswörth Castle with its tower.

The dominant feature of the Bischofsstadt is the Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral (the third church built between 1211 and 1237, the previous two having burnt down) with four slender towers and an interior with impressive Gothic decoration. The interior of the cathedral is also notable for having two choirs with altars. The western one is dedicated to St Peter and contains the relics of Pope Clement II. It is the only papal tomb north of the Alps. There is also an eastern choir with the altar of St. George and, in front of the choir, a tomb with the remains of the only canonized royal couple, Emperor Henry II and his wife Kunhuta. In the eastern crypt is a sarcophagus containing the coffin of another German king, Conrad III, who died in Bamberg.

On the square in front of the Cathedral, opposite the 16th-century Old Princely Court (Alte Hofhaltung), Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn built the Baroque New Residence (Neue Residenz) at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1647 an academy was founded in Bamberg, which was dissolved in 1803 and later rebuilt, today named the Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg.

The Middle Ages

The first mention of Bamberg as a castle owned by the Babenberg family dates back to 902, but an earlier, perhaps already Celtic, settlement (on the Altenburg hill) is assumed. At the time of the Migration of Peoples, the Slavs pushed the Germans out. Later on, however, the landscape was repopulated by the Germanic population. In 903 the Babenbergs lost Bamberg in a battle with the Frankish Conrads and the town later fell to the royal crown.

In 973, Emperor Otto II granted the town of Bamberg to the king. Bamberg to his cousin, the Bavarian Duke Henry the Bold. His son, the Roman king and later Emperor Henry II, founded the bishopric of Bamberg in 1007. At the same time he began to build the imperial falz (residence) and the magnificent Dome (from 1004). It is believed that he chose Bamberg as his seat.

The bishopric of Bamberg was originally directly subordinate to the Pope. Later, the bishops became lords of the city, and even the bourgeois uprisings (the largest took place in 1435) did not change this; the city did not gain its freedom. Initially, long-distance trade developed successfully here. The Bambergs had trade contacts in the Rhineland and Bohemia, with the so-called Golden Road leading from Nuremberg to Tachov via Bamberg).

The episcopal court of Bamberg in the late Middle Ages was characterised by intellectual openness and a great interest in art. Bishops, nobility and the wealthy patrician class supported and paid a large number of artists. Alongside smaller artisan workshops, large firms grew up with many journeymen who could afford to study the development of European art.

Not much of the rich production of the medieval period survives in Bamberg today. Devastation during the campaigns of Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades in the 16th century, the Thirty Years' War, the transition to the Baroque and secularisation either destroyed or dispersed the artworks.

Bamberg also became one of the centres of German humanism, art and science in the 15th century under Bishops Georg I von Schaumberg (1459-1475) and Georg III, Schenk von Limpurg (1505-1522). Johann von Schwarzenberg (1463-1528), author of the "Bamberg Penal Code", was one of the most important men at the court of George III. It was in Bamberg, the second city after Mainz to do so, that the new art of printing began. The first ever illustrated printed book was produced in Bamberg between 1460 and 1461.

The architectural structure of the city took on a firm outline at that time. The old nuclei of the individual settlements grew together. A large number of the houses in the Old Town date back to the Middle Ages, although they are now Baroque on the outside, as are the shape and size of the building plots, the course of the streets and the layout of many squares. Even today, it is possible to find your way around the city centre by looking at Peter Zweidler's map from 1602. The city is also described at that time as a fertile garden thanks to the skills of the Bamberg gardeners.

During the reign of Bishop George III, Schenk von Limpurg, there were many supporters of the Reformation in Bamberg. But under his successor, Weigand von Redwitz, many of them had to leave the town. After the expulsion of the casatale Johannes Schwanhausen, whose sermons on the unjust distribution of the veritable estates attracted large audiences, but also other social and reformist motives, together with the efforts of the townspeople to break the power of the cathedral chapter, led to the Bamberg uprising on 11 April 1525 as part of the great German revolution called the Peasants' Revolt.

The townspeople occupied the city gates, and the seats of the cathedral canons and the monastery of Michelsberg were sacked. A peace settlement was then reached with Bishop Weigand. Nevertheless, after the defeat of the peasant army at the gates of Würtzburg and the summoning of troops led by Georg von Truchsess by the Cathedral Chapter, a harsh showdown with the rebels took place in Bamberg. Twelve rebels were executed and the town and countryside were disciplined with extremely heavy fines.

Another dark chapter in the city's history is the series of brutal witch trials in and around the city between 1625 and 1631 initiated by the Bishop of Bamberg, Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim. The exact number of victims is not known, but it is estimated that thousands of people, mostly women, were executed or martyred.

The Thirty Years' War

The terrible Thirty Years' War began in 1618 and in 1631 it also affected the Franks. The city remained on the side of the Catholic League. Troops frequently passed through the territory of the Duchy of Bamberg, and so it was particularly affected, being plundered and ravaged by friend and foe alike, imperial troops, Swedes and French alike. The defence of Bamberg was impossible with its many separate districts and weak walls. Between 1631 and 1648 the city was occupied by Swedish troops and the bishopric temporarily disappeared. Before the war the town had 12,000 inhabitants, after the war less than 7,000.

Baroque period, 17th-18th century

After the war, Bamberg was in its cultural prime. Under the reigns of the von Schönborn bishops Lothar Franz (1693-1729) and Friedrich Karl (1729-1746), the city experienced rapid economic development, mainly due to the reforms introduced by Prince Bishop Lothar Franz in the administration and economy. The prince, ruling with absolute power, created a tightly organised, well-functioning staff of town officials. The city administration controlled all areas of life and took on many new responsibilities. Trade and crafts were regulated, manufacturing was encouraged, and roads were built. Counter-reformation measures stabilized the Catholic Church. The colourful medievalism of Bamberg gradually gave way to a clear and brightly lit bureaucratic state.

The first half of the 18th century saw extensive construction in the Baroque style in Bamberg, the Baroqueisation of monasteries and churches, the building of residences, palaces, and townhouses. The architectural concept of the ruler, Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn, was behind it all. In March 1700, a mandate was issued which allowed extensive tax breaks for new buildings, made building materials available free of charge, and construction contracts were approved very benevolently. The only prohibitions were that houses had to be built in such a way that wood was visible and existing half-timbered houses had to be plastered over. Tax breaks also allowed the townspeople to give their houses a new face with baroque facades. Fountains, bridges and squares were decorated with statues.

The building boom also attracted many architects, builders and craftsmen. Among them were the architects and builders brothers Georg, Leonhard, Johann Dientzenhofer, Cheb-born architect Balthasar Neumann and others.

It was impossible to impose an ideal symmetrical layout on a medieval city like Bamberg, which grew naturally and consisted of many small details. The urban plan of the princely bishops, following the ideas of the architect Balthasar Neumann, envisaged the creation of a baroque axis from the eastern side of the city, from the famous Seebrücke bridge (demolished in 1784, today replaced by the Kettenbrücke) along the Hauptwachstrasse, along the Grüner Markt, through the arcade of the island town hall to the cathedral square. Along this axis, buildings were built that served as architectural models for other bourgeois buildings. They sought to create visual links between them and a sense of space in keeping with the Baroque sense of life. The highlight comes with the corner wing of the New Residence by architect Leonhard Dientzenhofer, which visually connects the hilly part of the city, the island part and the surrounding landscape.

Despite the general development of the town, the social situation was very bleak at the end of the 18th century. Under the reign of Franz Ludwig von Erthal, Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg (1779-1795), far-reaching reforms were made in the legal system, education, health care and care for the poor. He was the prototype of the 'enlightened' prince who considered himself a servant of his people. Bamberg had a population of about 21,000 at the time, including 3,000 registered gentiles.

In 1789 Franz Ludwig, together with the physician Adalbert Friedrich Marcus, built the most modern hospital in Europe at that time. He created a kind of "health insurance" for servants and journeymen, to which both employers and employees had to contribute. The organisation of primary education was intended to enable his subjects to improve their situation by their own means. The system of care for the poor was considered so exemplary that it was adopted by the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816, and its basic features remained valid until the introduction of Bismarck's social measures.

Secularisation (1801-1802)

The development of the city came to a halt with the advent of the French Revolution in the 1890s and the Napoleonic Wars from 1792 onwards. Bamberg was occupied several times by the French. The wars were ended by a peace treaty concluded in 1801 at Lunéville between victorious France and the Holy Roman Empire. One of the consequences of the agreement was secularisation, i.e. the dissolution of ecclesiastical principalities such as Bamberg, their secularisation and the compensation of German princes with revenues and land for losses on the left bank of the Rhine.

Bavarian royal troops occupied Bamberg in 1802, effectively ending the independent ecclesiastical principality of Bamberg. The Bavarian king in Munich took over the government of the city, and the episcopal office was abolished. The incorporation of Bamberg into the Kingdom of Bavaria was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815.

In 1817 a new ecclesiastical order was established in Bavaria with the establishment of two archbishoprics, Munich-Freising and Bamberg. The bishoprics of Würzburg, Speyer and Eichstätt were incorporated into the new archdiocese of Bamberg.

Secularization and its consequences were a major blow to the history and form of Bamberg. Seven monasteries, three chapter churches, a residence and many other buildings passed into the ownership of the Kingdom of Bavaria. The local inhabitants were of the opinion that the unused chapels and gates should be demolished to give the town a friendlier appearance. The greatest loss to this idea was the original St Martin's Church on today's Maximilianplatz, which was demolished, including the adjacent cemetery.

19th century - present

The industrialisation of the 19th century, the construction of the railway line and the opening of the Ludwig-Danube-Main Canal had a great influence on the present-day appearance of Bamberg and its surroundings. The Jewish community also contributed to the development and became a driving force in the economy with the relaxation of restrictive regulations in 1871.

Bamberg was also a Bavarian garrison town. After the Second World War, up to 16,000 people were stationed in the local barracks. American soldiers. Their departure in 2014 ended the military tradition in Bamberg.

During World War II, Bamberg was only minimally damaged compared to other German cities.

Since 1993, Bamberg has been a UNESCO World Heritage City.