Halle Cathedral

It was founded as a Dominican monastery in 1271 and completed in 1330, with a simple three-aisle abbey church dedicated to Sankt Paul zum heiligen Kreuz (the order's rules prohibited a tower or a separate choir).

Around 1520 the then-archbishop Albert of Brandenburg had Bastian Binder remodel the church's exterior, adding rounded gables.

As an opponent of Martin Luther, Albert was forced out of Halle in 1541 and took the church's portable fittings with him to Aschaffenburg, where they remain.

The last such ruler, Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, added galleries and a larger altar in the mid 17th century, altering the church's style to early Baroque.

In 1680 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg made it a parish church (by then the area was Protestant-Reformed) and in 1702 a young Georg Friedrich Händel was employed there for a year's probationary period.