94

DOMESTIC MANNEBS OF THE PBUSSIANS.

The Romans are said to liave founded the city, and whenTacitus wrote it formed one of the strongest defences as wellthe most splendid of all the towns on the banks of the Rhine.It was called by them "Augusta Nemehim" and " Noviomagus,"but later, " Spiro,."

A Roman temple to Mereury, we are told, existed on thepresent site of the Domkirche, and the heathen shrine wasoriginally converted into a Christian Church by Dagobert II.Conrad IL (called the Salic) founded the present Cathedral,in 1027, as a place of burial for himself and his Imperialsuccessors.

In the time of Charlcmagne, Speier became the seat ofthe Germanic Diet, and the ancient Franconian and Suabiankings made it their place of residcnce, raising it to the dignityof a free city of the Empire.

In 1111, Henry V. granted it the monopoly of the car-rying-trade up and down the Rhine, and it then became thecentre of a flourisbing commerce. The Citizens had conferredupon them, at the same time, the riglit of destroying anybaronial Castle which might be built within three miles oftheir gates.

During the middle ages, Speier was alternately the sceneof Imperial festivity within its walls, and of violent feuds andbattles without—the Citizens being then as well versed in theuse of arms as in the arts of trade, and battling at one timewith some neighbouring town, and at another issuing forthto punish the rapacity of some feudal baron who had plun-dered their merchants on the high-road. Occasionally, too,Speier was besieged by the collective armies of the baronsand cities with whom they had been at war, and though theunited force against them, at one time, numbered 20,000 men,the enemy was repulsed, history teils us, by the bravery of itsCitizens.