Qualla: Imperial Palace of Goslar

Imperial Palace of Goslar: Introduction

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Two thrones survive from the medieval Holy Roman emperors. One is Charlemagne's, in Aachen. The other stood in Goslar until the 1840s, when a Prussian prince bought it and installed it in a mock monastery at Glienicke Palace near Potsdam. It passed to the Hohenzollerns, and on 21 March 1871 Emperor William I sat in it to open the first Reichstag of the new German Empire. Its bronze arms and backrest, worked with curling tendrils, were cast in the second half of the eleventh century, most likely for Henry IV. The chair had been unemployed for seven hundred years. Then somebody found a use for it.

Image: Public domain

Imperial Palace of Goslar: The Most Famous Residence in the Empire

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pedelecs, CC BY-SA 3.0. That was the chronicler Lambert of Hersfeld's verdict, written while the place was still new. It began as an Ottonian hunting lodge and became serious in 1005, when Henry II built the first imperial mansion here. Ore from the Rammelsberg soon made the site more valuable than the ...

Image: Pedelecs | CC BY-SA 3.0

Imperial Palace of Goslar: What Happened in the Hall

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC0. Henry IV was born here on 11 November 1050 and grew up watching the empire misbehave in his own house. At Pentecost 1063 the Goslar Precedence Dispute — an argument between Bishop Hezilo of Hildesheim and Abbot Widerad of Fulda over who should sit where — turned into half a day o...

Image: Zairon | CC0

Imperial Palace of Goslar: Granary, Prison, Car Park

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen, CC0. William of Holland was the last German king to reside at the palace, in 1253. A fire razed much of the district in 1289, the town took possession the following year, and the long descent began. The great hall served as a courtroom, then as storage; by the mid-sixteenth century bo...

Image: Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen | CC0

Imperial Palace of Goslar: A Ruin Turned Into an Argument

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Brunswyk, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1865 more walls came down and demolition went on the town council's agenda. A state commission recommended restoration instead. Work began on 14 August 1868, stalled during the Franco-Prussian War, resumed in 1873 and finished in 1879; Emperor William I visited in August 1875 ...

Image: User:Brunswyk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Imperial Palace of Goslar: A Heart in a Gold Capsule

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Markus Schweiß, CC BY-SA 3.0. The oldest and quietest thing on the site is the double chapel of St Ulrich: a Greek cross below with three eastern apses, an octagon above with one, reserved for the imperial family — a combination found nowhere else in Germany. At the crossing below stands a sarcophagus with a...

Image: Markus Schweiß | CC BY-SA 3.0