Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Franks, died in 814. A few years before his death, Charlemagne ordered his friend, advisor and biographer Eingard to build a magnificent palace with a chapel. Eingard chose the architect Odo of Metz to realise this plan, and already in 805 the chapel was completed. 805, the chapel was consecrated. It's where Charlemagne is buried, and it's where is where Charlemagne is buried, and where his relics remain to this day.
Simple in plan, the chapel is a tall octagonal hall with a lower hexagonal hall. The arches are lined with alternating bands of variegated coloured stone. The walls of the chapel are decorated with ancient mosaics and terminated in a simple conical roof. In the 17th century it was replaced by a high dome with a lantern. From the ceiling from the ceiling hangs a wrought iron chandelier in the form of a crown, donated to the cathedral by Frederick Barbarossa. And in the cathedral's treasury museum there is a medieval moulded medieval cast statue of the Virgin Mary of extraordinary beauty.
The Palace Chapel was given the status of a cathedral in the 9th century. It went down in history as as the place where Germanic kings were crowned. A large throne has been preserved in the chapel. legend has it that it belonged to Charlemagne himself. Emperor Henry II gave the cathedral a bronze cafe in the 11th century to the cathedral a bronze pulpit inlaid with ivory.
Aachen cathedral does not have the traditional Romanesque architecture of a of Romanesque architecture. The chapel is its core. In the 14th century a Gothic-style choir with an altar was built to the east of the chapel. Thirteen huge 25 metre high windows of the choir, separated by slender buttresses, occupy most of the wall and illuminate the cathedral. They contrast with the small round windows in the chapel. Subsequently, other chapels appeared, varying in style and size. and size. The steep slopes of the roof of the choir, built in the fourteenth century, are clearly visible, as is the the 17th century dome crowning the chapel. The pyramidal spire, which differs considerably in style. significantly different in style, was built later.
