Regensburg Cathedral

Stand still for a moment on the Domplatz and look up. The stone above you is pale and slightly grey-green, worn smooth in places and rough in others. Pigeons move along the ledges. Two open, lace-like spires rise over the rooftops of the old town. On a quiet morning you can hear footsteps on the cobbles and, sometimes, a bell somewhere above. This is Regensburg Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Peter. It is the great Gothic church of Bavaria.

A church has stood on this site for well over a thousand years. Regensburg was an important bishop's seat very early, long before most German cities had stone churches. The building you see today began after a fire damaged the older Romanesque cathedral in the thirteenth century. Romanesque means the rounder, heavier style that came before Gothic, with thick walls and small windows. The builders chose something new. They chose height, light, and pointed arches, in the French manner.

Work began in the 1270s. And then it continued, slowly, for generations. Masons came and went. Money ran short. Plans changed. By the early sixteenth century most of the church stood complete, but the towers were still unfinished stumps. For more than three hundred years the cathedral stood without its spires. People in Regensburg simply grew used to a cathedral with flat-topped towers. It is strange to imagine now, looking at the skyline.

The spires came only in the nineteenth century. King Ludwig the First of Bavaria loved medieval architecture and supported the work. Builders finished the two openwork spires in the 1860s, following the Gothic style of the older stone below. Here is a detail most visitors miss. Look closely and you can often see a difference in the colour and texture of the stone. The lower parts are medieval. The pointed tops are Victorian-era work, roughly six centuries younger.

Now walk slowly around the west front. The portal is covered in carved figures, saints and scenes from the Bible. Many are weathered, softened by centuries of rain. Up in a corner, two small figures lean out from the wall. Locals call them the devil and his grandmother. Legend has it that they were placed there to keep evil outside the church. Nobody knows the carver's real intention. But the nickname has lasted for generations.

There is another tale here. According to a popular local story, the master builder of the cathedral and the builder of the Stone Bridge made a bet. Whoever finished first would win. The bridge builder, so the story goes, made a deal with the devil to work faster. It is pure folklore. But it shows how proud this city was of both projects. The medieval Stone Bridge still crosses the Danube only a short walk from here.

On the north side, look for a plain, older tower. It is called the Eselsturm, which means the donkey tower. It survives from the earlier Romanesque church. Locals say that donkeys once climbed a ramp inside it, carrying stone and mortar up to the builders. Whether donkeys really did this is not certain. Still, the tower is real, and it is one of the oldest visible pieces of the whole complex.

On the south side there is a darker carving. It is an antisemitic medieval sculpture, of a type found on several German churches. It mocks the Jewish community that lived in Regensburg for centuries. That community was expelled from the city in the early sixteenth century. Today a plaque nearby explains the carving and its history. The cathedral chose to keep it visible and explained, rather than hide it.

Now step inside. The temperature drops. The air smells of cold stone and old wax. Your eyes need a moment to adjust. Then the colour arrives. The cathedral keeps a large collection of medieval stained glass, much of it from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Deep blues, reds, and golds fill the tall windows. On a sunny afternoon, patches of coloured light move slowly across the floor and the pillars.

Walk toward the crossing, where the long nave meets the transept. On the western pillars stands a pair of figures showing the Annunciation, the moment the angel Gabriel tells Mary she will bear a child. The angel is smiling. It is a small, warm, almost mischievous smile, rare in medieval sculpture. People here call it the smiling angel. The unknown sculptor is known only as the Erminold Master, after another work attributed to the same hand.

Now listen. If you are here at the right time, you may hear the Domspatzen. The name means the cathedral sparrows. This boys' choir traces its history back more than a thousand years, which makes it one of the oldest choirs in the world. For three decades it was led by Georg Ratzinger, the elder brother of Pope Benedict the Sixteenth. The choir still sings at Sunday services here.

Then look up again, toward the nave. A large organ hangs high on the wall, mounted in the air rather than standing on a gallery floor. It was installed in 2009. It is often described as the largest suspended organ in the world. Steel cables and anchors hold its weight. Its height also lets the sound travel freely through the whole long space of the church.

The cathedral is only one part of a much larger whole. The old town around you, together with the district of Stadtamhof across the river, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Regensburg came through the Second World War with relatively little damage. So the medieval street plan, the tall merchant towers, and the narrow lanes are still here. The cathedral treasury and the cloister hold more to explore, often with a guided tour.

Before you leave, stand in the middle of the nave for a minute. Notice how the pillars lead your eye up, and up again, into the ribs of the vault. Hundreds of people worked their whole lives on this building and never saw it finished. As you walk back out into the square, turn once more. Look at those two spires against the sky... and the patient grey stone beneath them.