page_title: Worms Cathedral
section_title: Chapel of St Nicholas
hierarchical_section_title: Worms Cathedral / Architecture / Chapel of St Nicholas
caption_attribution_description: Cathedral St. Peter (Dom St. Peter), Worms, Germany
context_page_description: St Peter's Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral in Worms, southern Germany.
  The cathedral is located on the highest point of the inner city of Worms and is the most important building of the Romanesque style in Worms. It is closely associated with Bishop Burchard and the high point of Worms' history in the 12th and 13th centuries. It was the seat of the Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Worms until its extinction in 1802, during German mediatisation.
  After the extinction of the Bishopric, it was reduced in status to that of a parish church; however, it was bestowed the title of Minor basilica in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.
  Most of the cathedral was finished by 1181, however the west choir and the vaulting were built in the 13th century, the elaborate south portal was added in the 14th century, and the central dome has been rebuilt.
  Great events associated with the cathedral include the nomination of Leo IX as Pope in 1048, the Concordat of Worms which ended the Investiture controversy in 1122, the marriage of Emperor Frederick II to Isabella of England in 1235 and the Diet of Worms in 1521, during which Martin Luther was condemned as a heretic.
context_section_description: In the course of the third period of construction, an early romanesque chapel in honour of St Nicholas of Myra was built, which was consecrated in 1058. Its consecration inscription and the tympanon of the former entrance to the cathedral, with one of the oldest known depictions of St Nicholas, are preserved. It was apparently used to store a relic of the Saint, which had been brought by Empress Theophanu from Byzantium, at the time of her marriage to Otto II in 972.
  The current chapel of St Nicholas was built on the same location between 1280 and 1315 in the Gothic style, with two aisles, immediately west of the man portal on the south side aisle of the cathedral. At this time, when St Nicholas was still buried in Myra, his cult spread through the west and he was revered as patron of various groups and helper in many matters. This could explain the unusual size and sumptuousness of the chapel. The Jesuit and Bollandist, Daniel Papebroch (1628–1714) saw the original Worms relic of St Nicholas in 1660. He described it as a "finger bone" of the saint, which at that time was stored in the cathedral sacristry, but had previously been displayed in his own chapel. He states also that the Worms relic was always immersed in oil, just as the relic of St Nicholas in Bari is to this day. Papebroch also mentions a still-extant sumptuous consecration offering from Queen Constance of Sicily († 1198) to Saint Nicholas. The old relic o Nicholas was lost in the destruction during the Nine Years War. At the end of the twentieth century, a new one was acquired, which is kept once more in the chapel of Nicholas, in a modern reliquary.
  The chapel was originally part of the cloisters which were located immediately to the west and was hidden by them for half its length. When the remains of the cloisters were finally cleared away in 1830, the structure of the chapel fell out of balance so that they finally had to completely dismantle it in 1920/27, like the west choir a few years earlier, install new foundations and rebuild it anew. On this same occasion, they also attempted to correct the proportions of the chapel which had become ungainly after the removal of the cloisters, by extending it to the west by a half vault. The current (southern) entranceway to the chapel derives from modern times, but its tympanon comes from the portal which formerly led from the cloisters into the chapel.
  The furnishings of the chapel of St Nicholas consist today of pieces which were all originally intended for other contexts. The gothic carved altar comes from Southern Germany and was only acquired a few decades ago. The late Gothic Baptismal font was originally located in the Johanneskirche, which was demolished in the 19th century, the almost life size Gothic depiction of three young women was in a nearby abbey. The intense blue-red windows immerse the chapel in an almost mystic twilight. In the highly elevated roof of the chapel, the collection of architectural decorations and casts of them are housed, while the cellar houses the central heating of the cathedral. The chapel now serves as the baptismal chapel of the cathedral and is used for weekday services. Thus it has appropriated the functions of the old Johanneskirche.
caption: Chapel of St Nicholas, exterior
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