Imperial Palace of Goslar

As early as the 11th century, the buildings of the imperial palace had already so impressed the chronicler Lambert of Hersfeld that he described it as the "most famous residence in the empire".

To the east, opposite the Kaiserhaus stood the east–west aligned collegiate church of St. Simon and St. Jude, of which only the north porch remains.

To the palace grounds belonged also the residential and working buildings of the canons, the houses of the ministeriales and the imperial entourage, the stables and storehouses.

The earliest origins of the imperial palace are probably in a royal hunting lodge, as Adam of Bremen mentioned for the Ottonian period.

Under Benno's expert guidance the buildings that had been worked on since the 1040s were completed in the first half of the 1050s: a new Kaiserhaus, the one that we know today, and the Collegiate Church of St. Simon and St. Jude.

The imperial throne was set in the seven-metre high upper storey in the middle of the closed, rear, west wall.

The east wall was pierced by a row of windows and gave a view of almost the entire palace district and the cathedral opposite.

At the foot of the southern staircase, there are the remains of foundations, that probably belong to the first imperial mansion (Pfalzbau) built by Henry II.

The canons used to celebrate their services in a three-nave basilica with a transept, three east apses and westwork with two octagonal towers with a bell chamber between them, and a simple narthex.

The church was consecrated on 2 July 1051, by Archbishop Hermann of Cologne and dedicated to Simon the Zealot and Jude the Apostle, whose saint's day coincided with Henry III's birthday.

At this time, the basilica was the largest Romanesque church east of the Rhine and became the model for many similar buildings in northern Germany, for example, the Brunswick Cathedral.

The bottom row shows, from left to right, Emperor Henry III, the patron saint of the cathedral, Simon, Matthew and Jude, as well as another, not clearly identifiable, imperial figure.

The bronze side arms and backrest, which are ornamented with tendrils, date to the second half of the 11th century, whilst the sandstone plinths surrounding the actual seat are somewhat more recent.

It subsequently came into the possession of the Hohenzollerns and was used as the imperial chair for Emperor William I at the opening of the first meeting of the new German Reichstag on 21 March 1871.

Today a sarcophagus stands right in the centre of the cross in the lower chapel, whose cover slab has a sculpture dating to about the middle of the 13th century.

This is a life-size, horizontal figure of Henry III, his head on a pillow, a dog lying at his feet, in his right hand the sceptre, in his left, the model of a church.

The sarcophagus contains (in an octagonal gold capsule) the heart of Henry III, which was interred in Goslar at his own request, and has been kept since 1884 in the Chapel of St. Ulrich.

The upper storey, probably designed with marble floor, was reserved, once again, for the imperial family and had a direct connection to the Kaiserhaus from the westwork.

Other curia buildings, such as the "von Steinberg" and "Herlinberg" bordered the square known as the Kaiserbleek to the north and south of between the collegiate church and the Kaiserhaus.

In the years 1913/14 and again in 1922 archaeological investigations in the palace district were carried out by Professor Uvo Hölscher, thanks to which the foundations of the Church of Our Lady were re-discovered.

[4] On warmer summer evenings the large meadow around the two statues in front of the Imperial Palace used to be a popular meeting place for all kinds of people.