City of Speyer (Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany)

Stadt Speyer

Last modified: 2005-11-12 by santiago dotor
Keywords: rhineland-palatinate | rheinland-pfalz | speyer | stadt speyer | coat of arms (church: red) | coat of arms (cathedral: red) |
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3:5
by Stefan Schwoon
Coat-of-arms adopted 1845

• Description

See also:

• County and Municipal Flags (Rhineland-Palatinate / Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany)
• Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany)
• Germany

Divided red and white with the arms. There is also a banner [hanging flag] version. Source: Debus 1988 [deb88].

Stefan Schwoon, 2 March 2001

From Ralf Hartemink's International Civic Arms website:

The arms were granted in 1845 by King Ludwig of Bavaria. The arms show the stylised western part of the local cathedral, where the graves of four medieval German emperors (Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry V) and of four medieval German kings (Phillip of Swabia, Rudolph of Hapsburg, Adolph of Nassau, Albert of Austria) are. The oldest seal of the city dates from the early 13th century and shows the northern part of the cathedral. (...) The cathedral can be seen in the arms of the city in a roll of arms from 1398, a relief from 1469 and many images from later centuries. As there was no consistency in the images, it was decided in 1845 to use the western façade of the cathedral in the arms. The colours are known since the 16th century.

Literature: Stadler 1964-1971 [staXX].

Santiago Dotor, 8 January 2002

It might be worth mentioning that although the city is nowadays usually spoken of in English by its German name, it was for centuries called Spires in English, and Spier in Dutch. If I recall correctly, the French name is Spire.

Mike Oettle, 26 June 2002