Exhibition about Speyer´s Imperial Chamber Court from 1527 to 1689

With the help of 30 pictures and papers, the goal of the exhibition is to revive a scarcely noted chapter of the history of Speyer by going into the time of the Imperial Chamber Court. After Speyer´s golden time in the Middle Age, the city benefited economically due to its role as being the location for the Supreme Court.

Founded in 1495 at the Diet of Worms, the task of the Imperial Chamber Court was to institute regular court proceedings in order to guarantee the development of a professional court system in Germany.

The Imperial Chamber Court was responsible for breaches of the peace, for complaints concerning financial matters, for disputes over property claims, for civil lawsuits, and after the Reformation, also for religious quarrels.

In the years between 1495 and 1806, the Imperial Chamber Court was the supreme Appeals Court of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation along with the Court Council of the Empire. From 1527 until the destruction of Speyer during the 1689 Palatine War of Succession, it had its head office in the ancient Speyerer Ratshof close to the Imperial Cathedral.

The exhibition gives social historical insights of Germany of the 16th and 17th century by showing documents and evidences like the handwritten  “Augenscheinkarten”, or a field map of Landau, that was specially manufactured for a trial over land ownership between the city of Landau and the bishop of Speyer from 1568 and 1579.

The exhibition may be visited during the opening hours of theAltpörtel.