Essen Cathedral Treasury

[2] During the Second World War the Treasury was taken first to Warstein, then to Albrechtsburg in Meissen and from there to Siegen, where it was sealed in Hain tunnel to protect it from aerial bombing.

After the end of the war it was found there by American troops and brought to the State Museum in Marburg, and later to a collection of displaced artworks in Schloss Dyck, Rheydt.

The new display of the Cathedral Treasure was opened on 15 May 2009, which was over seventy percent larger than the previous space and improved in line with the latest ideas in museum education.

The collection is exceptional in its completeness because only a few pieces of the Abbey's Treasure, such as the golden shrine of St Marsus, have been lost in the course of time, and particularly because the liber ordinarius survives, in which the liturgical use of the objects is laid out.

There is also a vitrine in the Treasury with loaned items from the Diocesan Museum, such as the crosier, mitres, pectoral crosses and rings of the deceased Bishops of Essen.

Essen Cathedral Treasury chamber next to Essen Minster
Reliquary from the abandoned altars of Ostchores in Essen Minster, dating from 1054.
These Burgundian fibulae are a highlight of the treasury. In total, the treasury contains sixteen of these rare pieces of jewelry from the fourteenth century.