The history of the hotel and brew-house Domhof
In the anniversary year of the city of Speyer, which celebrated its 2000th anniversary in 1990, the Hotel Domhof was opened. But people had slept, eaten and drunk here long before. Crowned heads were guests on this site.
Emperor Sigismund, for example, over 500 years ago or King Wenceslas. And many, many of their "colleagues". It was from here that Henry IV once set off on his famous "walk to Canossa".
In 1340 the Speyer town council bought this property from the family of the citizen Ebelin and made it the "Ratshof" not only for meetings, the estate also served as a hotel for Germany's kings and emperors when they came to Speyer. And they came often. Many imperial diets were held here. One of them was particularly important: in 1529 the Protestant (Evangelical) Church was founded on this site, when five imperial princes and the representatives of 14 imperial cities put their protest against the supremacy of the Catholic Church on record.
In a certificate of the year 1347 the 'Domhof area' was called 'the hotel of mine and of the empire' by King Karl V.
But it was not celebrated as much as today. The territory was exclusively reserved for the roman king and for the High Council of Speyer. 'Marriages, meetings, festivals, dances or other amusements' were not permitted at that time.
In 1530/31 the Imperial Chamber Court, the highest legal authority of the german empire moved to Speyer which made Speyer to the centre of Germany and also of Europe.
Then everything changed over night. In 1689 the French burned down the whole city and also the Imperial Chamber Court which looked like a ruin even hundreds of years later. The building served as an imperial academic high school from 1704 on. The today's 'Barbarossasaal' was used as a school theatre. From 1928 to 1963 the 'Domhof area' was a cinema which had 500 seats. After that the closed cinema was used as a flea market and had to be renovated completely then.
The today's brew-house is historically seen much younger than the hotel: In 1821 the building was constructed as a 'German Public School' on the ground where after the great town fire little and low valued houses had been built. The today's beergarden served as a school yard after the old library of the Imperial Chamber Court had been demolished. The foundation walls of this library can still be seen in our underground parking garage.
